


The Burdens We Bear

by Sand_Cat



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angsty Bran, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Bran Stark is Underrated, But what even was his character in the first place, Everyone who appears in this fic besides Jon is underrated, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I mean like really Angsty Bran, Jojen Reed is Underrated, Jon and Jojen should start an emo band, Justice for Bran, Justice for Ghost, Justice for Jojen, Justice for Meera, Justice for everyone, Kidnapping, Locke is kind of OOC, Meera Reed is Underrated, Meera deserved better and y'all can fight me, No Smut, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Piping hot justice for your consumption, Pre-3ER Bran, Show Canon/Book Canon mix, Slow-ish burn, We are serving JUSTICE today folks, Whump
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:00:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 33,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24027817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sand_Cat/pseuds/Sand_Cat
Summary: When Bran and Meera find themselves in the clutches of a mysterious stranger, they are both forced to confront their guilt, their pasts, and, most of all, their growing feelings for each other. Meanwhile, Jon is in hot pursuit of their captor while being torn between worlds.--Or, my attempt at creating a Bran/Meera Hurt/Comfort fic, making Locke's presence in S4 mean something, and resolving a couple issues that were never really addressed.
Relationships: Jojen Reed & Jon Snow, Jojen Reed & Meera Reed & Bran Stark, Jon Snow & Bran Stark, Jon Snow/Ygritte (past), Meera Reed/Bran Stark
Comments: 31
Kudos: 54





	1. Bran I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bran and Meera make a new friend, while Jojen enjoys creeping people out.
> 
> *NOTE: The attempted rape/non-con scene that I have referenced in the tags occurs in this chapter. Threats may occur later in this story, and there will be reminiscing about the incident that occurs here, but as of right now I do not plan on writing anything more. It is literally a written version of what happens in 4x05 between Karl Tanner and Meera.
> 
> If you think the scene warrants a Rape/Noncon archive warning, let me know in the comments below. I will mark the scene with ** at the beginning and end for the convenience of anyone who wishes to skip it. Stay safe. <3
> 
> ** Additional note: This is an action-packed chapter, it does slow down a bit later. Finding a starting point for the plot of this fic was tricky.

_A wolf could never be chained._

_He could be caged or trapped or kenneled, but never chained. Never shackled. Never forced to remain still. He would die before allowing some pitiful creature to take away his ability to resist. To run, maybe, but never to resist._

_A wolf would always be free in this way._

_Any man who tried to tie him down would soon realize why it was dangerous enough to capture a wolf, let alone restrict him._

_But Brandon Stark was no ordinary wolf._

_Brandon Stark was the Broken Wolf, and he had already been chained._

“Bran?”

The boy blinked and came forward, while the wolf retreated into the recesses of his mind. He very nearly growled at whoever had pulled him from his dream, as had become his habit, but he stopped himself. Whoever had called him back probably wouldn’t appreciate it, so he held his tongue and clenched his fists underneath the layers of twine that bound them together.

He lifted his head to gaze from his post to Meera’s, who offered him the tiniest of apologetic smiles. “Sorry,” She said quietly, confirming it had been she who had woken him. Bran wasn’t surprised. “Is Summer alright?”

Bran fought away the last remnants of sleep as he replied. “He’s fine. Still hurt from the trap, but he isn’t doing any worse than we are.” The sentence, which should have been spoken as light as it sounded, settled gloom across them. They both knew Summer would have to be in pretty dire straits to be in worse conditions than Bran and his friends were.

His eyes traveled over each of his companions to make sure nothing had changed during his time in his wolf’s body.

Jojen Reed bore no physical marks of their capture by the Night’s Watch deserters just yet, for which Bran was grateful. His friend had grown more sickly every day since they had gone north of the Wall, which they all knew hadn’t escaped their jailors’ notice. Even now, Jojen’s green eyes were unfocused as they stared back at Bran. He was sure that if the other boy had not been held up by his ties, he would have slumped over by now. Despite the greenseer’s earlier promises that this wasn’t the end of their journey, Bran found himself doubting Jojen’s visions for the first time since they’d met back in Winterfell. 

A prickle of guilt stabbed under Bran’s skin at the sight of Hodor. It was a feeling that was becoming too familiar when it came to the half-giant. Guilt at taking advantage of his strength, strength that he had been using for the past few years to carry or drag the crippled Bran across miles and miles of wilderness. Now that guilt extended for Bran’s failure to protect the simple-minded stableboy from the cruelty of the mutineers. Bran had seen the way they had jeered at him, poked at him with their spears, and abused him just for their own horrid amusement. Hodor now had dried blood smeared across his temple, his hands, and one of his legs. Bran hoped the wound beneath his breeches wasn’t as bad as the blood staining them made it look. 

And Meera. 

Bran almost couldn’t bring himself to look at Jojen’s sister. Despite her advice, Bran had refused to leave when they had the chance. He could still hear her tiny gasp of fear next to his ear when they’d first glimpsed how the men here treated their captive women, however much she’d tried to disguise it.

They’d been captured themselves shortly after. The only way they’d been able to catch Meera, the only one among them proficient with weapons (and very much so), had been off guard. Some brute had struck her full in the face with the pommel of his sword when she hadn’t even been aware of his presence, knocking her out cold for a good twenty minutes. By the time she’d awoken, the rest of them were at the mercy of the mutineers.

The cut on her forehead from where he had struck her had since scabbed over, and Meera hadn’t mentioned any lingering pain, thank the gods, but Bran feared for her for different reasons.

He swallowed as she met his eyes. “While I was away, they didn’t…” He let the sentence trail away, as though speaking his fear aloud would make _it_ happen. He didn’t think it had while he was out — after all, Meera had managed to wake him just by a simple call of his name — but he had to be sure.

She shook her head wordlessly, the easy smile that usually graced her features completely absent now. The answer should have made him slump over in relief, but all it did was fill him with a sense of dread and send his stomach into a slow churn. 

“Bran, you’re turning green,” Meera said gently. He briefly wondered how’d she’d noticed, with the little light that they had and the posts that they were bound to as far apart as they were. “I won’t have you getting sick as well.” 

_Just like Meera, worrying about everyone else three times before even thinking of herself once._ If he wasn’t so terrified on her behalf, he might have laughed at the absurdity. “I think that’s the least of our concerns.”

“I’ve told you already,” Jojen stated suddenly. Bran stirred, having assumed the younger of the Reed siblings wasn’t listening. “This isn’t the end. We’ll know when it is.”

Meera’s eyes flicked from her brother, to Hodor, to Bran, to the floor. The crippled boy couldn’t even attempt to guess how she was feeling, or what questions were running through her head. “I know,” He said to Jojen. “It’s what we’ll face between now and then that concerns me.” Jojen didn’t reply, and Bran couldn’t help but look sideways at Meera again. His heart dropped like a stone upon realizing his words had cast even further a shadow over her face. 

Making her smile would be the least he could do for her, since he’d gotten them into this mess. Finding their way out of it would be the better option, but he was afraid that there was no way out. Or at least, not one that Bran could find. 

He had never quite felt so helpless. Even after he’d first awoken from the fall and felt the loss of his legs, he’d at least had some agency in protecting those he cared about. He could ask someone to lift him from his bed if he so wished. But he was not the Lord of Winterfell, not here, so close to the edge of the world. Anyone could see past his Stark name and see him for what he was. He may have been a wolf, but he was a broken one. A crippled boy who had failed to protect his friends. 

“Hodor.”

The giantish man rocked back and forth against his bonds, shaking the whole hut. Bran distanced himself from his heartache in an effort to make his voice firm. “Hodor, stop that.”

“Hodor, hodor,” Hodor disagreed. His rocking grew more frantic. Jojen, who was closest, reached out a trembling hand as far as his bonds would allow in the hopes that touch would soothe him, but he couldn’t reach. Besides, it was unlikely that Jojen could provide any sort of comfort to him anyway. “Hodor, hodor!”

Bran was brought back to the night at Queenscrown when he had skin-changed into Hodor for the first time. He had been crying out in panic, just like now, repeating his name over and over in in the face of crackling thunder. In an effort to quiet him and make sure they remained undetected from the wildlings who would hear his cries, Bran had held out his hands, yelled, “Hodor, Hodor _stop_ —” And somehow had changed. He had become Hodor for no longer than ten seconds, just long enough to stop his shouting and leave them both limp in shock when Bran returned to himself. Hodor remained in a daze for an hour or more, and when he came out of it, stared at Bran with something the Stark boy knew to be _fear._

Simple-minded Hodor should never have had to fear. He was innocent, yet Bran had betrayed his trust and invaded his mind. Ever since, the air between them felt… different. Heavier. Bran wasn’t sure if he was imagining it or if Hodor was even aware that something had changed between them. For all the Broken Wolf knew, Hodor had forgotten anything had ever happened. 

“Hodor, hodor, hodor—”

“Will someone shut that _fucking halfwit up before I bleed him?!”_ The angry shout came from outside their hut.

Jojen’s forlorn gaze slid to Bran as his head lolled to one side. “Bran,” He began, his voice husky from dehydration. “Bran, he needs you to…”

“I won’t do it,” Bran said clearly. “I won’t.”

The younger three of the quartet went silent while Hodor’s repetitions increased in volume. After another complaint from outside arose, Jojen tried again. “Bran.” 

_“I know,”_ He snapped at his friend. “Hodor, hush. Now, please.” He tried to stifle the pleading tone that crept into his voice. 

“Hodor.” The man said it once more before he obeyed and the rocking gradually slowed. Meera, who had gone quiet through the ordeal, let out a shaky sigh of relief. 

“Have you heard anything?” Her voice was soft, probably to both keep Hodor calm and not draw any more displeasure from the men outside. “Anything about them ransoming you back to Jon and the Night’s Watch?” 

Bran wondered why she was asking. They’d been privy to the same conversations outside. Or rather, the lack of them, as the only thing they’d managed to eavesdrop on was a few complaints about ‘Karl’ wasting food on four prisoners. Once, he thought he saw footprints leading away from their hut and a swinging lamp, like someone had snuck up to check on them, but Bran decided not to mention it to Meera. He didn’t want to give her false hope that would lead to nowhere, when he wasn’t even sure what he had seen. “Nothing.” 

Meera leaned her head back against her post, then curled her legs into her chest. She must have caught on that Bran wasn’t up for speaking, because she didn’t try again.

Seconds stretched into minutes, and minutes into hours. The sun’s light, warped and turned cold by Northern clouds and snow, eventually faded, leaving nothing but the glow of a single torch between them. None of them spoke, aside from Hodor’s occasional mumblings and Meera’s intermittent whispers to Jojen when he looked like he was about to drift away from them. 

The silence almost made Bran forget where they were. So much so that when they came for Meera, he was struck dumb for a moment.

**

The ringleader, the one Bran was sure was called Karl, strode in first. “Get her up,” The former Night’s Watchman commanded the two men who followed him in with a dull tone, like Meera was nothing more than a chore that needed to be completed before the day was out. He sounded _bored_. It made Bran sick. They moved past him so quickly that he didn’t even have time to try to lash out his legs to help her.

“Hodor!”

He heard her intake of breath, as sharp as it had been outside the keep and as clear as if he was sitting next to her. “Stop,” He protested weakly, all he could do. They untied her from the post first, one man holding her arms, another cutting the ropes. Bran could only catch a glimpse of her face, white and terrified. 

Furious tears pushed at the corners of his eyes and threatened to fall. “Stop,” Bran said again, like he was still Lord of Winterfell and his words held any sway here. “What are you doing? Stop!” 

“Hodor, hodor!”

Karl didn’t even spare Bran or Hodor a glance. A smarmy grin came over the man’s face as the two hauled the struggling Meera to her feet. If Bran had been in Summer’s body, he would have been able to smell the absolute terror rolling off her in waves. He could barely handle his own as it was, he couldn’t even imagine what hers was like.

“Stop!” He was screaming now. Meera was writhing, squirming as best she could with her hands bound, but all her training with knives and bows was useless now. Her panicked gasps and grunts as she strained to get free for even a second filled his ears. 

“Hodor!”

“Stop.” His voice broke. 

They dragged Meera a few steps to her right, closer to Bran. For a moment, he thought they were going to take her outside and away, but they stopped halfway. While Meera struck out wildly with her legs, they raised her arms up, over her head, towards a formidable-looking meat hook dangling from the ceiling that Bran hadn’t noticed before. 

When Meera figured it out, she began thrashing twice as hard, half-screaming in her desperation. One of her kicks caught Bran in the chest, but in his fear he felt nothing. The dismay on Meera’s face was enough to make him feel like one of the Others had wrapped its cold fingers around his heart and was trying to crush it.

“Hodor!”

Bran tore his eyes away from Meera and looked beseechingly up at Karl. “ _Please_ ,” The former Lord of Winterfell begged, possibly for only the second time in his life, he couldn’t remember now. Karl only rewarded him with a smirk. A smirk that might as well have said to Bran, _You want her? Stand up and free her then, ‘my lord’._

“Hodor!”

“Please… get off her…” Once the first plea passed his lips, more fell, all tangling together. It became easy to beg once he had jumped off the precipice, though he would leap off of it a thousand and one times if it would spare Meera. More, if they’d ask. “Please, leave her alone!”

They paid him no heed, of course. So a thousand and one times off the precipice it was. 

“Hodor! Hodor!”

Bran’s voice grew louder and more ragged with each plea, just wanting to do something, _anything,_ for Meera. Their captors were unbothered by him and even laughed derisively, though he couldn’t be sure if it was directed at his friend’s struggles or his own shouts. When they’d finally gotten what they wanted— Meera’s arms over her head and her legs secured together— the two moved away from her. She pitched forward, gasping for air and sagging against the ropes that held her. 

Karl glided over the Stark boy’s legs like they weren’t even there and stalked towards her. The last of Bran’s futile cries faded into the air as the former Night’s Watchman made gentle hushing sounds to replace them. Though Bran didn’t wish to be silenced, his greater fear was drawing Karl’s ire onto Meera, who was in the more vulnerable position out of the two of them. 

Bran spared a glance for Jojen for the first time since Karl’s arrival. Meera’s brother had paled, even more so than usual, his sweaty skin clammy in the firelight. _Does this feel like the end_ now _, Jojen?_ He thought bitterly. He began to wonder if the greenseer had foreseen this, then put an end to that thought before it had started. 

He couldn’t have. If there was anything Bran knew about the Reeds, it was how much they cared about each other, even if Jojen wasn’t very open with his affection.

Karl was speaking to Meera now while her rapid, shallow breathing filled the room. Even without seeing her face clearly, Bran knew she couldn’t be crying. Not because she was the bravest, most long suffering girl —person— he had ever met, but because he had heard her cry before. Late at night, once. The day after they’d gone North of the Wall, when she thought no one was listening. Bran knew that this wasn’t that.

That knowledge didn’t make the noises Meera was making now sound any less like racking sobs, though.

Karl’s words were so low that Bran couldn’t hear most of them, which he wasn’t sure whether to be grateful for or not. But he could see his filthy hand trail across her face and through her hair, could feel her horror push onto the edge of hysteria, where she held it. Against his better judgement, he strained his ears to catch what the man was saying to his friend. What he heard made his blood turn to ice in his veins. 

“You like it rough, don’t you?”

Bile rose in Bran’s throat. 

“You like it in the _gutter,_ don’t you?” He leaned even closer to Meera’s face and leered down at her. 

Fists clenched and unclenched in the Broken Wolf’s lap. 

It wasn’t him, but Jojen who spoke, despite not being invited to. “If you let my sister go, I can help you.” His voice was unusually steady. 

Karl barely turned away from Meera, who snapped out of her strategy of staring at no one in the room in favor of widening her eyes surreptitiously in her brother’s direction. “You can help me?” He asked. His eyes were too busy raking up and down the Reed girl’s frame to even fake any interest in Jojen. 

“I can.”

Bran wasn’t sure why Karl turned away from Meera. Maybe the certainty with which Jojen spoke intrigued him. For whatever reason it was, Bran was grateful for the extra second it kept Karl away from his friend. “And how are you going to do that?”

Meera must have figured out Jojen’s plan before Bran did, because she was already shaking her head. In some ways, she seemed more terrified of her brother’s words than she was of Karl. 

“I have the sight.” Jojen replied impassively. Now Bran understood. “I can see things.”

“That’s very helpful,” Karl scoffed sarcastically. 

“Things that haven’t happened yet.”

To Bran’s relief, Karl stepped away from Meera, who was practically shaking. He didn’t need a clear glimpse of her face to know she wasn’t exactly relishing her reprieve. She only had eyes for her brother, who was throwing his biggest secret out in the open for these disgusting creatures to take advantage of. “That’s a fine thing,” The vow-breaker mused. “A fine thing.”

He crouched in front of Jojen slowly. The gesture was so inherently predatory that Bran nearly screamed at Jojen to run, forgetting the whole list of reasons why he couldn’t, starting with his ties and ending with his sickness. The fact that Jojen would never leave Meera was somewhere in the middle. 

“Have you seen what I’m going to do to your sister?” He asked Jojen mockingly. The greenseer’s shake of his head was so imperceptible that Bran almost missed it. He stared back at Karl, unruffled by the threat. “Have you seen what they’re going to do to your sister?” 

Karl’s head inclined towards the two men Bran had forgotten about. He very nearly choked in despair at the reminder, but Jojen didn’t break the gaze of the older man, or even show any emotion at all. Bran didn’t hear the ‘No’ his friend uttered, it was too quiet, but he did see his lips move.

Karl drew his dagger, encouraging both Bran and Meera to lurch desperately as far forward as their bonds (and Bran’s useless appendages) would allow, but he lazily dangled it in front of Jojen’s face. “Don’t close your eyes.”

Bran had not been threatened the same way, and being reminded of the choice he had gave him the slightest sense of relief. Perhaps it was selfish, taking advantage of an option that Karl had delighted in taking away from Meera’s brother. Or perhaps it was noble, trying to preserve the tiniest bit of her dignity. Bran didn’t care about either of those things. He only knew that Meera wouldn’t want any of them to see. So Bran closed his own eyes while Karl turned back to his friend with the same hungry look as before in his own. 

“I saw you die tonight.”

Jojen’s prediction hung in the air among them all. Bran heard Karl stop in his tracks, but didn’t open his eyes just yet. 

“I saw your body burn. I saw the snow fall and bury your bones.” 

Bran knew the delirious grin that would be spreading across Jojen’s face right then. He had never seen the boy revel in violence or revenge before, and hadn’t truly observed one of his smiles since before Queenscrown, but he knew the feeling with which his words were spoken.

It was a grim sort of satisfaction. 

**

Bran opened his eyes, just as a battle cry sounded from outside the hut. Not a moment later did one of Karl’s henchmen storm through the flap, his whole body tensed.

“They’re here. The Night’s Watch.” 

Karl’s jaw clenched. Bran wasn’t sure if it was out of annoyance for being interrupted, or out of fear for what was coming. He took long strides and tossed the hut’s flap out of the way, kicking Bran’s leg on the way out with such force Bran might have cried out if he could feel. The other two thugs followed him.

He hoped that the savage died one of the slowest and most painful deaths the world had to offer before the snow fell. 

Once he was gone, Meera fell forward and let out a few breathless pants. Bran’s gaze lingered on the entrance of the hut for a moment, making sure that Karl was truly gone, before he turned it back to her. “Meera,” He said hoarsely. “Are you—?” Bran wasn’t sure of the word. Even though Karl hadn’t physically done it, he had gotten far too close, and he doubted she was _fine,_ or even _okay_ so soon afterwards. 

The crannog girl didn’t reply for a long moment, merely closed her eyes and breathed deeply until her hands stopped trembling against the hook that held them up. “Yes,” She answered simply, her voice as calm as she could force it to be. She didn’t meet Bran’s eyes and instead looked to her brother. “Jojen?”

Bran didn’t think Karl had touched Meera’s brother, and the tiny nod he gave confirmed it. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. 

“You knew?” Bran asked without thinking. 

Jojen’s head dipped towards the floor. The lack of an answer was enough for Bran, who used every ounce of self-control he had to keep himself from berating the other boy. Because what could he yell at him for? Jojen was the one who had managed to buy his sister time, not Bran. And what else could he really have done? 

War cries rose from outside, and Bran was reminded of what had forced Karl to leave. _The Night’s Watch._

Meera straightened herself up as much as she could, her thoughts obviously reflecting Bran’s own. “Is that Jon?” She asked Bran in a strained sort of tone. 

The Stark boy shrugged. “How could I know?”

She didn’t reply, and tore her gaze away from her friends and her brother to look up at her wrists. Panic and terror didn’t exactly lend themselves to precision, which was what she needed to tear herself loose. Bran watched as she gritted her teeth and lifted herself onto her toes, precariously trying to use the tip of the hook to cut her ropes. “If it is him, he and the Night’s Watch will free us,” He pointed out, wincing as her face began to turn red with exertion.

"I don’t plan on waiting for him,” She grunted. “There are still plenty of people here who’d rather kill us than help us, and if any of them had half a brain they’d already be in here with a dagger to your throat.”

Bran felt like cursing at himself for his stupidity. _Of course._ He didn’t know how he had missed it. They had assumed from the beginning that the mutineers had been planning on ransoming him back to Jon and the Night’s Watch. It was the only reason he could think of for his still being alive. Meera was right, the fact that no one had stormed inside and dragged Bran out in front of his brother yet was truly a testament to how idiotic these men (and Bran, since he hadn’t realized either) were. He and the others needed to be gone by the time Karl figured it out. 

He’d tried loosening his ropes many times since they’d been brought here, but he attacked them with new resolve. Despite her awkward position, Meera seemed to be having more success than he did. Jojen didn’t even try, only stared off into the distance with the same impassive expression he always wore.

“Hodor.” 

Bran should’ve taken it as a warning.

Someone did come through the entrance of the hut, halting his and Meera’s efforts. He was tall, and dressed in the black of the Night’s Watch, but neither of those things helped him discern the identity of the newcomer. The mutineers still wore the colors of their former brotherhood in spite of their betrayal. 

“Rescue party’s here, lads,” The stranger announced. If that didn’t reassure Bran, the sheathing of the sword he was carrying did. He shot a toothy grin in Meera’s direction. “Lady.” 

“Is Jon with you?” Bran blurted out the question, his relief temporarily outweighing his suspicion.

“Aye.” The man’s gaze swept across all four of them, before crouching next to Bran and beginning to cut away the ties binding him to the post. “I’ll take you to him.”

 _Thank the gods._ Bran allowed his hands to go still on the knots. _It’s about time you gave us a little luck, isn’t it?_

His hope turned to ash at the sight of Jojen’s face. The boy didn’t look consoled; in fact, a hint of concern had crept into his stoicism. He’d looked more confident when Karl was looming over his sister. The same sister who was now tugging on her own restraints again, eyes wide with alarm. 

Meera and Jojen were a step ahead of Bran. Their worries set something in the Stark boy’s gut, something one step above unease and one below dread. The feeling grew stronger when the man stopped halfway through the process of releasing him. “You’re Brandon Stark?” He questioned, a bit too much interest in his tone for Bran’s liking.

Bran looked out of the corner of his eye, up at Meera. She didn’t make any physical indication, yes or no, but the trepidation with which she observed the newcomer’s behavior was enough for him. He closed his mouth— it had betrayed them enough already. The stranger’s eyes narrowed into a glare at his silence, then flicked to Jojen, the only other person present who could pass himself off as Brandon Stark. The greenseer didn’t say anything either, so he drew his dagger and sliced deep into Bran’s unfeeling leg. The boy saw what he had done a second too late for any reaction to appear honest.

Meera gasped in shock at the savagery, and Hodor squeaked, “Hodor!” Bran’s misfortune might as well as hurt them more than himself, since he didn’t feel a thing other than a prick of annoyance at people constantly using him for his family’s title.

“A little crippled lord,” The stranger taunted as Meera began fighting her bonds with renewed strength. 

“Leave him alone!” She snarled, so angrily that she may well have not been human. _“Leave him alone!”_

“Hodor!”

“We’re going for a ride, boy.”

While Meera was struggling and growling, and the strange man was gloating, Bran made a last-ditch effort. _He said Jon was close._ So he screamed for his brother, hoping with every hope he had left that the stranger had been telling the truth. “Jon!” He yelled. “ _Jon_ —”

A gloved hand slapped over his mouth and muffled his speech. “Keep talking,” The man warned, as his fingers pressed into Bran’s jaw and shoved his head back into the wood, “And I’ll cut your friends’ throats.” Hodor began rocking back and forth again with no one to even attempt to calm him. “Starting with the idiot,” The ruffian promised, pointing his dagger at the half-giant. Meera’s chain rattled from her continued fighting while he leaned closer to Bran. “Do you hear?”

When Bran didn’t immediately respond, the man’s glove gripped at his face harder and yanked his neck forward. “ _Do you hear_?” He asked again.

The Broken Wolf nodded. The stranger’s face cracked into a triumphant smirk before crashing his head back into the post. Bran let out a very un-lordly whimper of pain, which only spurred Meera on.

“Leave him _alone_ ,” She ground out. As Bran watched through vision hazy enough to trick him into believing there were two Meeras, she kicked out with both legs. All her weight rested on her wrists and swung the chain. She had far greater reach than before, and her attempted blow almost reached the stranger, but it didn’t.

The man let out a small chuckle in the instant before Meera fell free. The rope snapped with the extra weight and dropped her to the ground. She laid there in shock for a moment before she realized what she’d done and started scrambling. The stranger startled too, and nearly tripped over Bran in his haste to get to her. 

“Hodor!”

Meera pushed herself up and took a wild swing at him. He staggered back, and Bran’s mouth dropped open. He lashed out with his own tied hands as hard as he could, but the savage was too far away.

It happened so quickly. Meera, unable to stand a chance with her legs bound, bent down to loosen them — the stranger recovered and raised his knee to her face — he knocked her to the frozen dirt and stepped over her, lifting the knife that he’d been using to cut Bran free just a minute ago. 

“Wait— _stop!”_ Bran found his voice from reeling in shock. How had things gone from bad to worse so quickly? “Stop, please, no, _don’t.”_

The emotional whiplash the last half hour had given him was beginning to settle in, as disorienting as the ache in the back of his skull. Words were torn from him as his eyes connected with Meera’s. She’d gone from irrefutably safe to danger to back again about a hundred times, all for him, just as the others. Not again. 

The stranger, thankfully, paused. He looked between the two, knife still raised, then to Jojen, who simply returned his stare. The three captives waited with breath caught in each of their throats.

Bran released his when the man sheathed his weapon and crouched back over Meera. The girl fought back for a moment longer before his hand landed back on its gleaming hilt and he raised his eyebrows challengingly. “I wouldn’t, my dear,” He rumbled.

Meera turned her head in the dirt to Bran for confirmation, refusing to give it to the stranger on her own. The former lord nodded his assent, and though Meera glared back at him, she obeyed the unspoken order to cooperate and went still.

The man worked quickly, leading Bran to suspect that they weren’t his first group of captives. He picked up Meera’s discarded ropes and bound her hands back together, then her arms to her sides. All motions that made sense, though Bran’s brow furrowed when he selected the longest piece and linked it to the one around her wrists. 

All became clear when he took his knife again and sliced through the ones on her legs. 

Meera’s eyes widened in surprise, and she dug in her heels when he picked up the lead and pulled her to her feet. “What do you think you’re doing?” She hissed as he wrapped the lead around his fist. When he didn’t respond, Bran looked up at his friend and shook his head even more vehemently than before. The motion made the world tilt dizzyingly back and forth, and he had to stop what little he had in his stomach from expelling. 

“I’d listen to your crippled lord.”

He swallowed thickly at the epithet, but didn’t anger their new captor further by protesting against it and kept his eyes fixed on the ground. He could feel Meera’s worry though the crannog girl said nothing else. “That’s better.” The stranger pulled Meera towards Bran and finished cutting his ropes off on the other side. “And you will both stay quiet. I’d rather take you alive—” He clapped the boy’s shoulder. “—But my lord will accept your head instead of your life, if he must.”

“Hodor! Hodor!”

Bran shook the stranger’s hand off of him.

Undeterred, the man gestured to Meera. “Help me carry him.” His friend hesitated. “Now, or I’ll be forced to take his head sooner rather than later.” The girl grimaced and knelt down next to Bran. Their eyes met, and as she laced her fingers around his furs, she took the opportunity to whisper into his ear. 

“Not the end, remember?”

A smile ghosted across Bran’s lips as he looked past her to Jojen. 

The boy didn’t say anything, but nodded his head. Bran wondered what that gesture meant for the briefest of seconds, but he didn’t have long to wonder. The stranger grasped the furs on his other side, much more roughly than Meera had, and yanked him up and over his shoulder. The world turned upside down.

His captor’s next words made a chill run down Bran’s spine.

“Quickly now. It’s a long way to Winterfell.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, friends! Please welcome the first multi-chapter fic I have posted on A03, and the first in the GOT/ASOIAF fandom. <3
> 
> Bran and Meera are a criminally underrated pairing, so I've decided to add my own contribution to their tag. I personally love Hurt/Comfort fics (with slow burn :3) and thought the Season 4 storyline with Craster's Keep and Locke was quite pointless. So here is my attempt to give it a point and give Bran, Meera, and Jon some character development at the same time, including giving Jon a certain skill he may find useful in the future. ;)
> 
> Obviously, as this is a storyline that only occurred in the show, so this fic will be mostly show-verse. That means that the characters are also older than they are in the books-- Jon is 19-20, Meera is 17, Jojen is 15, and Bran is 14-15. I am aware that Meera is older in the books, but her age is pretty ?? in the show and I began shipping her with Bran in Season 4 or Season 6, where Ellie Kendrick only looked a couple years older than Isaac Hempstead-Wright. I was shocked to find out how much older she was, and as I saw the show first, even more shocked to learn how much younger Bran was than Meera in the books. I am not comfortable with writing a 7 year age gap couple that are this young, (if they were both older, such as in their twenties, maybe) so the age gap has been narrowed to fit what I originally envisioned. 
> 
> I would love a beta for this story, so if you are interested you can comment below!
> 
> This fic won't have any smut in it, or any sexual undertones beyond what happened in this chapter. There may be comments/threats/flashbacks or a second attempt later, but there will be no rape in this story. If you are worried about being triggered, I would recommend not reading. Safety is way way way more important. <3
> 
> Please let me know if the Karl/Meera scene warrants a Rape/Noncon warning.
> 
> Have a good day everyone, and please comment below to help me keep my motivation up :)


	2. Jon I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jon plays the pronoun game with an old friend. Jojen finally catches a break.

_The Free Folk said that she was kissed by fire, and that the color of her hair was a sign of good luck. They were right about the first and wrong about the second._

The flames he was confronted with now were all too similar and all too different at the same time. He watched them lick high into the air, then flicker, falter, fall. 

“Jon.” He turned to face Grenn, who was looking at him with concern. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine.” The bastard of Winterfell looked up at the night sky. It had darkened while he was lost in his thoughts. 

“You forget that we were moving on Craster’s, or what, Snow?” His friend leaned against a nearby tree and crossed his arms. It was a challenge, a trap, and Jon knew it, but Grenn was no fool. They had known each other for too long to not be able to tell when something was wrong. “I’ve seen you stare trouble straight in the eye before. What gives this time?”

He didn’t respond. 

“Come on. You’re brooding nearly as much as you did your first day at the Wall. Something happen with the wildlings?”

“I’m not talking about it, Grenn. Don’t ask me to.” His voice sounded rough, like he had swallowed a mountain of gravel. He expected his friend to push the matter, and was taken quite aback when the man just shrugged.

Grenn unsheathed his sword and stepped away from his tree. “Fine then, keep your secrets. We have to move anyway.” He paused. “Remember what Locke said about the hut on the west side. The hounds.”

Jon got to his feet and impatiently stamped out the fire before leaving, snuffing out every last bit of orange, flame and ember. Smoke rose as he did so, writhing around his boots, but he paid no mind.

_The sinking sun set her ablaze, his fire made flesh._

They stormed the Keep an hour later, Jon whispering orders to his crew on approach. With a sword in his hand, he became alive and time sped up. Every man was not a man, a son raised from his mother’s breast who had his own family and friends. They became faceless obstacles instead. Obstacles that would fight back tooth and nail and needed to be overcome for Jon to go further. 

The knowledge that these obstacles had killed his former Lord Commander, mutinied against their vows, and held Grenn and Eddison Tollet prisoner for a time made killing them slightly easier.

His first opponent merely exchanged a few blows before taking a gander at his face and running off to face someone else. Jon wondered in the fleeting moment before a different mutineer challenged him if the man had recognized him. He cut his new adversary down with a simple parry and slash, and set off looking for Karl Tanner as screams of battle rang out around him. He lost track of Grenn in the fray, and knew Edd and Locke were around somewhere, but he couldn’t afford to worry about them. They were not only here to punish those who had broken their vows, but also to silence them from giving information about the Night’s Watch to the wildlings.

_His wildling._

The next blade that came his way narrowly missed his heart, only piercing the straps of his armor on his shoulder. He grunted, knocked its owner in the face with the hilt of his sword, and swept on to the north side of the keep, where Craster had hosted the Night’s Watch when he’d travelled here last. If Karl had set up his dictatorship anywhere, it would be there. 

When he entered the largest hut, a man matching Grenn and Edd’s descriptions looked up, a twisted smile upon his face. “Lord Snow,” he greeted mockingly as he let the body of one of Jon’s Black Brothers fall to the floor. “Have you come to bring me back for trial?”

Blood rushed in his ears. It wasn’t Grenn, Edd, or even the newcomer Locke on the floor of the hut, but it was Hordan. He hadn’t known the man well yet he had volunteered to come on this mission with Jon. He was a brother of the Night’s Watch. 

Time slowed back down. 

Hordan had come to the wall for being indebted to his liege-lord three times the amount of his labor’s worth. He was not a true criminal, not in the way that men like Karl were. Karl Tanner didn’t deserve a trial. 

Jon stepped forward, slow and measured. Karl recognized the change in him and let out a bark of laughter before stepping on Hordan’s hand and over his body like his former brother was nothing. “You will not touch me, Lord Snow.”

The bastard struck out. Karl’s blades flashed and caught his. 

“We had a good thing here,” Karl complained as they circled each other. “We were free men.”

Jon’s anger lent him speed. His attack was quick and brutal, but Karl’s return was quick and _dirty._ His blades moved faster than Jon could follow, and the bastard was put on the defensive almost instantly. They exchanged rapid blows as they danced around the cooking spit that had been left burning in the center of the hut. “You’ll never be free,” Karl snarled when they broke apart, “You’ll never know what that’s like.” 

_He was right._ In a way that he couldn’t possibly know, he was right. Jon’s guard lowered slightly.

Jon instantly regretted that mistake when Karl pressed forward once more, putting him on the run. For a split second, he could appreciate the ease with which he was put off balance, and wondered where Karl had been in his early days at Castle Black where he’d been desperate for a quality sparring partner, before alarm set in. Karl was _good_. Possibly too good. 

“You learned to fight in a castle?” The mutineer taunted as they fought. “With some old man to teach you how to stand, how to parry?” He shoved Jon backwards, drawing a grunt out of both of them. 

“How to fight with honor?”

Karl retreated from Jon with a small smile upon his face, as though playing a game that he was steps from winning. Jon noticed, with irritation, that the other man was hardly panting at all. “You know what’s wrong with honor?” He hissed. “Honor doesn’t let you hold your enemy’s brother captive.”

Jon had been waiting to regain his breath before attacking again, but Karl’s words knocked it right back out of him. 

“Little, crippled Brandon Stark.”

Sam had told him he’d seen Bran heading North of the Wall. He’d known there was a possibility that his brother, his trueborn, Stark brother, might stop here. But it was slight. There were thousands upon thousands of acres of untamed, wild lands North of the Wall; the chances of him stumbling across Craster’s Keep were low. 

His sword had dropped again, and Karl was on him. The mutineer pushed him back, and they both fell over Hordan’s body with a knife to Jon’s throat upon landing. His eyes lit up with triumph. 

“If you have laid a hand on my brother…” Jon started in a low, threatening tone. Karl chuckled as he pressed the edge of the blade in harder. 

“Oh, I did.” 

Jon’s fingers clutched at Hordan’s hand, which still clenched a dagger of his own. While Karl laughed, he pulled the blade free and buried it in the mutineer’s back. 

“I know,” He replied as he drove Hordan’s knife in up to the hilt. 

Karl slumped over his chest. Jon had to use every ounce of strength he had to keep the man from slitting his throat with his last breath. When he was sure Karl was dead, he shoved him off with contempt that was only reserved for the likes of him, and headed for the flap of the hut without looking back. 

He tasted the acrid tang of blood and sweat in the air, so familiar to him these days, but the battle was almost over. Edd was fending off the last mutineer just as Jon emerged. As he watched, Grenn came up from behind and helped him finish him off, relishing the kill as their former jailor dropped to the ground. Despite his other worries, Jon managed to summon a smile at seeing them both alive. 

“Count the dead,” He called to no one in particular, and ran for the hut where he knew Craster had kept supplies.

Bran wasn’t in that one, nor the next one he checked. He wondered for a moment if Karl had lied, then shook the feeling away. There had been no possible way for the traitor to know that Bran was North of the Wall without having seen him. Hell, _Jon_ hadn’t even known until Sam had told him they’d crossed paths, and the rest of the world thought his brother was dead. By the time he’d checked almost all of them, Grenn had finished counting. “Ten mutineers,” He called to Jon. “And four of ours.”

Though his worry for his blood brother was strong, Jon nodded grimly and took a moment to grieve. The news wasn’t surprising, yet losing as many as four was bad enough. They’d been lucky it wasn’t more. “I thought Locke said there were eleven,” He mused.

Edd and Grenn exchanged a glance. “Rast,” The first muttered. 

Jon’s teeth gritted. If even one of the mutineers had gotten away and ran into Mance Rayder and the wildlings, this whole excursion would have been a waste. Or it would have been, if Bran wasn’t here somewhere. 

“Snow!” Someone called from the west side of the camp. “I think you might want to see this.” 

Hope surged through him, and he stumbled towards the hut that the voice had come from. Numbly, he noticed it was the hut Locke had indicated had chained hounds inside. He placed a hand on the pommel of Longclaw and entered. When his eyes adjusted to the low lighting, even less than there was outside, he was surprised to see no hounds, but more importantly no Bran. However, there was someone in the room just as familiar.

“Hodor?”

“Hodor,” Came the confirming answer from his former stableboy.

Relief sparked at seeing the man alive, promptly followed by confusion. He remembered what _exactly_ Sam had said. Bran had been traveling north with Hodor, Summer, and two crannogs. His brother had been here. But he clearly wasn’t now, so where was he?

“Jon Snow.”

He looked away at the sound of his name, and his eyes found a boy, about Bran’s age but had the cracked voice of someone far older. The boy was covered from head to toe in a thin layer of sweat and stared back at him with shockingly green eyes that pierced Jon’s mail. It was unnerving to say in the least. “It’s nice to finally meet you,” The boy said. 

“Who are you?” Jon asked slowly. Despite his uneasiness with Hodor’s companion, he knelt next to his friend from Winterfell and began loosening his bonds, as gently as he could in order not to distress the giant man. He’d clearly been through enough. “Where’s Bran?”

“Jojen Reed,” The boy told him. The first name sounded familiar from Sam’s tale, when he’d met Bran at the Nightfort, and the surname he vaguely recognized from Maester Luwin’s lessons about the houses sworn to the Starks. Bran had always been better with remembering which houses were which. “And Bran is safe. For now, anyways. Someone took him and my sister.”

“Who? And how do you know he’s safe?” Each question was rougher than the last. Upon seeing Jojen pause, Jon made an effort to lessen his hostility.

Inexplicably, Jojen’s eyes flitted to Hodor. “The man said he wanted him alive.”

A low growl rumbled in the back of Jon’s throat, so vicious and wolf-like the bastard took himself by surprise. He used the anger to tear through the last of the knots securing Hodor down and free his friend. “Hodor,” The large man said gratefully as he got to his feet. Jon moved on to helping Jojen, who started to explain what had happened to their siblings but was interrupted by a bout of coughing. 

“Do you,” Jojen started, then stopped as the last rope fell away. Jon offered a hand to the boy, who took it and staggered slowly to his feet.

“Come.” Jon interrupted the tale, as loathe as he was to do it. The boy was clearly ill and in need of care. “I’ll give you water.”

Jojen shook his head, even though he had to put almost all of his weight on Jon to even stand. “Doesn’t matter.”

“Of course it matters,” Jon scolded. To his surprise, a laugh burst out of the boy with so much force that he coughed even harder and swayed on the spot. The bastard took that as a signal that Jojen was in much worse shape than he had originally thought, and half-carried, half-dragged him out of the hut, along with Hodor, who limped along behind them. “Grenn!” He yelled.

His friend appeared in the entrance of the same structure he’d left Karl and Hordan in. His brow furrowed at the sight of them, though Jon wasn’t sure if it was out of bewilderment or concern. “Who…” He began. 

“It’s a long story. Help me.”

Grenn, thankfully, didn’t ask any other questions for the time being, though he did raise an eyebrow. He strode over and led Jojen to a log with a fire where he could sit and recover some strength, giving the boy his water skin when Jon asked. The Reed boy drank from it hungrily, so much so Jon almost ripped it away from him for fear of him vomiting. Jojen, thankfully, still had the wherewithal to realize when he needed to stop, which meant that the little party hadn’t been held for long. 

When he’d regained a tiny bit of color in his face, Grenn pulled Jon aside. “Who is he?” He asked urgently. “You owe me that. The fucker just drank almost all my water.”

Though the last part was clearly in jest, he had a point and they both knew it. 

“Hodor!” 

His friend’s eyes narrowed, and he ducked around Jon to watch Jojen try to care for the large stablehand. “Jon…” He said suspiciously. “Didn’t you tell us about a stablehand back at Winterfell who could only say something like that?”

Jon winced and nodded. 

Grenn looked furtively around before yanking him close so they could speak in private. “What the fuck is going on, Snow? Last we heard, Winterfell was sacked. What’s one of their stablehands doing a hundred miles north of the Wall?”

Jon sighed deeply and glanced at Jojen, who was running water over Hodor’s wounds and staring off into the woods, before explaining what he knew, which was actually very little. He told his friend about how Sam had run into the four travelers at the Nightfort and opened the gate that allowed them to go North of the Wall.

“And what exactly is your little brother travelling towards?” Grenn asked in disbelief. “You can’t tell me a cripple went this far north to have supper with the wildlings.” 

_He said that like supper with wildlings was bad. He wouldn’t know what it was like to track a deer over miles of frozen wastelands with a beautiful spearwife at his back, who would tell him everything he was doing wrong._

“I’m not sure,” Jon replied, with great difficulty as he turned his mind back to the conversation. “Sam said they refused to explain it to them.” 

“So ask…” Grenn paused to gesture to Jojen. “Where’d the little fucker go?”

Jon whirled. Jojen was gone, but Hodor was still hunched over the fire that they had huddled next to. Wherever the boy had gone, he hadn’t gone far. He heaved a frustrated sigh. “I’ll find him. You go find Edd and make sure Craster’s wives are alright.” His friend rolled his eyes, but took off in the direction of the hut in the center of the keep. 

Jon, meanwhile, walked over to the man that he’d known for years. Hodor may have been a man of few words himself, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t understand the words of others. “Hodor,” He greeted as he sat down on the log next to him. “It’s good to see you.”

Hodor, who was still nursing a wound on his leg, looked up and gave him a grin. “Hodor,” He replied happily. 

The bastard set his jaw at the sight of the injury, and suddenly worried that he’d killed Karl too quickly. The wound was no doubt the work of the mutineers, a coward’s blow. He wondered briefly what Bran and Jojen’s sister had suffered at their hands, and suppressed a shudder before bringing his mind back to focus. For all he knew, his brother’s current situation was even worse, which was why he needed to find Jojen quickly. “Did you see which way he went?” He asked.

Hodor pointed in the direction Grenn had left. “Hodor.”

A fond smile tugged at Jon’s mouth, despite the seriousness of the situation, and he chuckled. The misunderstanding was his own fault, after all. “No, Hodor. Jojen, which way did Jojen go?”

“Hodor!” This time he pointed off in the direction of the east side. Jon forced a broad grin and clapped the man on the shoulder. 

“Thank you, my friend. I’ll get you some bandages and cloth as soon as I can.” He raced off, taking note of Jojen’s footprints. Once he knew which ones belonged to the crannog, the tracks were easier to pick out and follow in the dim light. 

_“Can’t you see which directions the tracks are heading, Jon Snow?” She asked, a mocking smirk in her voice. “You truly know_ nothing.” 

The snow crunched under his feet as he left the ruins of Craster’s Keep behind, the firelight fading. _Where could the boy be going_ , he thought, intrigued. From Sam’s description, Jojen was a good friend, loyal enough to not leave Bran in his hour of need and smart enough to know how stupid it would be to wander in the dark of the north alone. He had a purpose, and Jon wanted to find out what it was.

Surely the boy wasn’t foolhardy enough to dash off on a rescue mission on his own? He’d been practically falling down in his fatigue a few minutes ago. 

A growling sound came from the depth of the woods. Jon’s hand flew to Longclaw, before the familiarity of that growl was driven home. It hadn’t been one he’d heard for many years, but a sound known to him nonetheless. His hand fell away, and his feet stilled. 

He heard Jojen’s voice, though it was too low to make out any words, murmuring in the dark. He shuffled closer in the direction it came from, and managed to make out a few words, including his own name.

“I…. Jon.”

Who was he talking to? 

“Is Meera alright?”

 _What in the… ?_ There was no human voice in response, only a series of growls and barks.

“Right, sorry.” There was a pause, and some shuffling, some rattling. “I’m sorry, I can’t do it. I’ll have to ask Jon.” 

A whimper, then more barking. Jon decided he’d had enough, both of the confusion and of the skin-crawling feeling that eavesdropping gave him, and made plenty of noise as he approached the rest of the way. “Jojen?” He called loudly. “You shouldn’t be out here.”

The boy whirled, nearly falling as he did so. He was still a bit unsteady, Jon noticed. The embarrassment at the boy slipping away from him so easily increased before he realized what Jojen was standing in front of. His mouth fell open in a way it had very few times before. 

Before him stood two full-grown direwolves, one white, one silver, both caged. They each stared up at him with wide, intelligent eyes, and the white one’s tail waved back and forth, swishing the air. His ears pointed straight up, and a pleased whimper escaped the other’s throat. 

“Seven Hells,” Jon whispered hoarsely. “Ghost?!” 

Jojen offered him a hesitant smile. “And Summer,” He supplied. 

_Of course._ Bran’s direwolf. The last time Jon had seen his younger brother he hadn’t even named him yet. His throat tightened. Two of the wolf pack were together, but their masters weren’t.

The brother wolves stared up at him, both quivering. Summer barked, and though Jon may have been lost in the joy of seeing his own companion again, he was sure that he saw a glimmer of recognition in the other wolf’s darker eyes. It was reflected in his own. “Hold on a moment,” He wondered aloud as he turned to Jojen. “Queenscrown, in the Gift last year…” 

Jojen nodded before eagerly changing the subject. “Can you get the cage open?”

Jon spared a longing glance for the cage and his beloved direwolf, but had to speak to Jojen. “I can, and I will. I’m not leaving Ghost again. Where did the man take Bran and…?” He paused, having forgotten the name of Jojen’s sister.

“Meera,” Jojen provided, bailing him out once more. “And he said he was taking them to Winterfell.”

Jon swore. 

*

The bastard managed to break the wolves free with an axe and some well-placed swings at the wooden cage bars, each strike quicker than the next. Summer stretched his legs when he was freed before brushing muzzles with his silent brother. Ghost didn’t let out a happy whimper like his littermate, though he did reach up and touch his nose to Jon’s chin as his way of saying hello. He noticed the blood around Summer’s paw and the way he limped after taking more than a few steps, but didn’t ask Jojen about it. They had wasted enough time already. 

By the time they returned to the keep, the largest hut was set aflame. Though his heart was heavy with the knowledge, Jon knew the bodies of his former brothers would be safe from the Army of the Dead this way. “Grenn!” He called again, unsure of whether or not it was safe to raise his voice above a whisper.

It wasn’t Grenn who responded, but Dolorous Edd, who lifted his eyebrows at the strange party of four emerging from the woods. “You’d better have a good explanation for this,” He remarked drily. 

Jon’s teeth ground together. “I do. Have you found Rast yet?”

The other man’s eyes narrowed at Jon’s avoidance before sighing and answering the question anyway. “No. Locke’s missing too, and we’ve covered a good area around the keep looking for his body. Nothing.” 

Jon wondered for a moment which of the two had been the man who had taken Bran, but he would have time to figure it out with Jojen later. “I’m going to try and find them,” He told Edd, looking past the man to make sure Hodor was still present. Lucan, one of the other men, was sitting with the former stablehand, looking almost confused at the conversation as Hodor was. 

“Right. And I’m sure that has nothing to do with _him,_ ” Edd replied bluntly. He jutted out his chin to gesture to Jojen, though the crannog didn’t seem offended. “Who is he?”

For the second time, Jon explained as quickly as he could what little he knew. While he was talking, Grenn came up behind Edd and listened in on the tail-end. When he’d finished, both of his brothers stared at him dubiously. 

“You’re going after Bran.” Grenn stated, quite unnecessarily.

“I shouldn’t have to tell you that if Thorne hears about this back at the Watch, then he’ll hang you as an oathbreaker.”

“‘I am the shield that guards the realms of men,’” Jon quoted from their vows. Grenn, who had discouraged him from deserting and joining Robb’s war after the death of their father all those years ago by repeating those very same vows, gave him a small smile. “What can I shield, if not a defenseless boy?”

“A defenseless boy that is also your brother, Snow,” Edd crossed his arms and stood his ground. “Your brother, the heir to Winterfell and an important political prisoner. The Night’s Watch pledges to not take sides in political conflict, and so do you.”

“‘I will live and die by my post,’” Grenn added, drawing in words from even earlier in the oath than Jon had. 

Jon exhaled and stared deep into each of his friend’s eyes in turn. “I can’t leave him, just as I couldn’t leave any of you if it was your lives on the line instead of his.” Grenn and Edd exchanged uncomfortable glances at that. “Even if Thorne did hang me as an oathbreaker.”

Silence fell across the three, thick as a woolen blanket. 

It was Grenn who broke it. “We’re going to need you, when the wildlings come. Every last man.”

“Then I shall have to return.” 

Edd rolled his eyes and scoffed. “If you ask me, you’re completely mad. You expect us to tell Thorne what you’re chasing, then? Tell him you ran off after your crippled half-brother with your wolf, a halfwit, and a sickly crannog, and take whatever shit he gives us for not stopping you? The man doesn’t need more reasons to dislike you.”

“No, I expect you to tell him I went after Rast,” Jon assured him as a plan formed in his mind. “Because that’s what I’ll be doing.” 

Grenn grinned at the idea, while Edd looked noticeably less enthusiastic, if not downright displeased. “Did I miss something here?” The latter demanded. “Last time you went missing, you were gone for over a year. ”

Jon shrugged. “You’ll just have to trust me, Edd.” His friend simply made a tutting sound in response and shook his head. “I will find them both. Rast and Bran.”

“And which will come over the other?” Jon paused at the edge in the question. “Suppose it was Locke that took your brother and headed for the Bay of Seals, while Rast goes to Westwatch. Who do you follow, _Lord_ Snow?”

The bastard’s eyes slid from the burning hut to Jojen, who sat between Hodor and Summer as he stared off in the distance. Edd turned away from him in disappointment and nudged Grenn along with him. Jon’s silence had told them too much and too little at the same time. 

“Rast.” 

They both paused and glanced at Jon. 

“I’d track Rast.”

Neither of his brothers smiled, but Dolorous Edd did clasp his arm suddenly, and tightly. “Then I wish you good luck, brother.”

_And so the bastard of Winterfell went back into the wild._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trivia: When I first started this fic, the order of POVs was Bran-Meera-Jon. I just recently switched it to Bran-Jon-Meera. This was the third chapter written, Meera's was second. This means her POV is next.
> 
> I'm sad to report there will be no Jojen POV in this fic, though he's quickly becoming one of my favorite characters to write about from other characters' perspective. I'm working several chapters ahead and currently on Jon's next chapter, and the interaction between them is very fun. 
> 
> As far as this fic's timeline and mixing of show-verse and book-verse, I've come up with a general rule: Unless I note otherwise, everything that happens to Bran's group before they passed through the Wall in the books happened in this timeline. (Such as Meera and Jojen meeting Bran before the Sack of Winterfell, and Osha taking Rickon to White Harbor). Anything that happens after they passed the Wall is show-verse. (ie Locke's existence, no Coldhands.) Bran being age-lifted to his show age is obviously one of the exceptions.
> 
> Don't forget to comment and leave kudos if you enjoyed! It's always much appreciated, and I'm also constantly looking for constructive criticism :).


	3. Meera I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meera plays a game and Bran gets some news.

_“Hand a little further down on the shaft.”_

_The boy obeyed, his eyes fixed on the rippling water._

_“Patience.”_

_His wrist went tight, his fingers rigid. “I am being patient,” He protested._

_“I’ll believe it when I see it.” His father’s lips twitched._

_A net falling into the shallows and ripping itself free suddenly interrupted their talking. A few paces away, a girl held up her net in triumph, several wriggling fish caught in it. “I was patient,” She declared happily. She looked expectantly at the boy in anticipation of some kind of reaction._

_He didn’t seem too disappointed and instead smiled at his sister’s success. “Good job, Meera.”_

_Their father ruffled her hair. “Nice work, little one.”_

*

Meera was quite tired of snow.

She was no stranger to it, obviously. She was from the North, after all, even if the Neck was considered its southernmost region. As a child, she’d always thought it quite beautiful, especially when the weather grew cold enough to freeze the top layer of the marsh and dust it with a powder-white blanket. It turned the swamps that she had grown up with into something entirely new.

Eventually, the ice would crack, and the spell would be broken. But that was okay, Meera did love her home.

Then she went North, with Bran and Jojen. Snow became more common the farther they went, and beyond the Wall, it wasn’t just everywhere. It snowed every minute whether it was night or day. Still, there was some joy in seeing something familiar in a land where nothing else was, and as Jojen once put it, _love and hate mated_. Or at least they had until tonight. 

They struggled through the snow, or rather, Meera struggled as their captor pulled her along. It was too hard to see Bran like this. The spitting wind and snowflakes forced her to squint to be able to keep an eye on him and their captor at all. Her prince was slung over the man’s shoulder, unmoving, and every time Meera got close enough to check on him her bonds were given a solid yank. After the stranger pulled her hard enough to knock her face-first into the snow and made yet another whispered threat against Bran, she stopped trying. Love and hate were completely separate now.

Eventually, the sounds of the skirmish at the keep faded behind them. Every step was a battle for the crannog girl, but she kept numbly taking them. 

Jojen was back at the keep. Alone, with Hodor.

It was the first time he had ever been without her to protect him. _Ever._ Being without him felt about as natural as breathing underwater. Everything within her told her to run back to the keep and drag this horrid creature behind her, damn the consequences. She was leaving her baby brother in the center of a raging battle. Knowing that Bran’s brother was probably back there as well was just barely a comfort. 

It wasn’t that knowledge that kept Meera from trying to break free. It wasn’t even the threats to Bran’s life, though they certainly had some part in helping. Meera was hinging everything and everyone she held dear on a tiny nod Jojen had sent her when the man was dragging her away.

Meera’s job was to protect her friend and her stupid, greenseer brother on their journey North, and they’d both told her to not act, so that was what she was doing. She gritted her teeth as her foot sank through a snowdrift. 

Jon would find Jojen, and keep him safe. He would. Meera knew it. 

She fixed her eyes on Bran, and prayed for him to wake up. 

It took them what seemed like ages to reach the horses. So long, Meera suspected that the man was totally lost, and had stumbled on them purely by accident. She wasn’t sure if his unfamiliarity with the terrain boded well for them or not. He threw Bran roughly over the saddle of the horse on the end, and Meera winced at the sight of the horn driving into her friend’s side. The stranger mounted behind him, though he didn’t exactly offer her a hand up. Instead, he gave her lead the smallest of tugs and nodded to the other mounts. “Untie the others and choose one, then shoo the rest off. Quickly, my lady.”

Meera's heart sank at the order to release the poor creatures into the wilds of the North, where they’d doubtlessly starve or worse, but she did as he asked. They’d barely gone a few steps when he stopped again.

“What the fuck?” He snarled, his back hunched over Bran. Meera tensed and didn’t respond until he pulled her closer. “The fuck is wrong with him?”

Meera dug her nails into his saddle’s leather as he brought her next to Bran, feeling a tiny prick of satisfaction when she saw the scratches she left behind. The triumph faded when she saw what the stranger was talking about. Bran’s eyes had rolled back into his head, the pure white that they turned whenever he warged into Hodor or Summer. Meera silently thanked whatever gods were listening, old or new, that he hadn’t blacked out.

While she had the chance, she gently lifted his head from where it rested against the mare’s neck. The motion was clumsy, so Meera tried not to jostle him too much and felt along his scalp as softly as she could. She inhaled sharply when her fingers came away bloody. 

“I’m not gonna ask you again.”

Meera spoke slowly, her eyes not leaving Bran’s sightless ones. “I’m no healer. I don’t know.”

“Hm.”

The stranger stretched his arm across the space between them and placed a hand on his captive’s shoulder, crossing the distance between their horses easily. His fingers curled in, tightening his grip to the point where it might have hurt if Meera wasn’t wearing several layers of furs. “You realize, if he dies, I will have no use for you.” He paused, and drew his face closer to hers. “Except for one.”

Meera should have been more frightened, but she’d heard that threat, or ones similar to it, so many times in the last few hours that it wasn’t nearly as terrifying as the first time. “I know.”

He held her for a second longer, his gaze searching her own, before letting her go. After binding her hands to the saddle, and his horse to her own, he tapped his heels against his mount once more and urged her into a slightly faster pace than before. “Keep up.”

Meera determinedly locked her gaze on Bran to remind her what she was here for.

*

Meera and her horse stumbled along behind Bran and the strange man for what she could only guess was for three hours, perhaps more. She tried to think of escape plans as they went, but came up short. If Bran’s legs worked, she might have been able to think of something, but even that was out of her skill set. Meera was one of the crannogmen, trained with guerilla tactics, nets, and spears. This type of situation was completely foreign to her with the only familiarity being the inherent need to defend. And at the moment, it appeared to her the only way to defend Bran was to grin and bear through their circumstances. 

After she grew irritated of her thoughts traveling in circles, she picked up the pace in order to be able to walk closer to the pair. More importantly, she needed to check on Bran. Her prince had been in one of his warg-dreams for several hours now, something Jojen had warned him against several times. Since her brother wasn’t present, it was now Meera’s responsibility. They fell in step alongside the other mare and she shot a glance at Bran, whose eyes were still glazed over. 

“And who might you be?” She glanced up in surprise at their captor, shocked to hear his cunning voice for the first time in hours. “Come now. No need to be so horribly boring you can’t even talk to me, is there?”

This felt like a trap. Meera kept her lips sealed. 

“Seven hells. Not even a little hint as to why you dragged a crippled lord miles and miles North of the Wall?” She remained unresponsive. “Can’t blame a man who’s only in want of good conversation, can you?”

“You won’t find it here.” She snapped her jaw shut after the words slipped free. 

“Ah, she speaks! And here I thought I’d found the only prey more irritating than the Kingslayer.”

Meera’s head suddenly swam with that new information. It had to be a trick, she thought, a ruse designed to get her talking and bring her guard down. And it was working. Instead of her mind sharpening with suspicion, it was ticking and trying to figure who this man could be, who had made an enemy of both the Lannisters and the Starks enough to track them both down and hold a son of each captive. If she could even trust that he was telling the truth at all about that. 

“Interested, are you? I’ll tell you my tale if you tell me yours, little one.”

She sucked in air through her teeth at the use of her nickname. He didn’t know, he couldn’t, he’d gotten lucky and happened upon it, that was all. Her head knew that fact, yet her heart hammered on within her ribs in spite of it. “No, thank you,” She practically spat out, a bit too much defensiveness in her tone to achieve the level of uncaring she was trying for.

The stranger leaned over, so perilously far Meera considered trying to pull him from the saddle. “Take my advice, _little one,_ ” He warned, clearly having noticed the effect the pet name had on her, “Telling me sooner rather than later might be in your best interests.”

Meera vaguely registered that he’d stopped. “And his?” She indicated Bran and tried to hide her worry.

He raised his eyebrows challengingly, and Meera suddenly realized this was the first time she’d looked full in his face. She wondered for a moment where he’d gotten his scar from. “His as well,” The stranger vowed, a moment too late to seem genuine. Meera’s nostrils flared as she looked away from him in silent refusal. 

“Not even going to consider it, are you?”’

“It’s called loyalty,” Meera shot out fiercely, before realizing her mistake. 

He chuckled with amusement at her stricken look. “I see. Keep your secrets a little while longer, then, it matters not. I enjoy breaking feisty little whores into bits.”

Her face went paler than the snow. He’d managed to shake her, or more accurately, the speed with which she’d accidentally revealed information had. Because that’s all Meera’s loyalty to Bran was to this man— information that could, and would, be used against them.

She didn’t know the game that he was playing, but she had to learn. For Bran. 

As if the thought had conjured him forward, the Stark boy's body suddenly seized up from his spot on the back of the horse. The strange man lost all interest in Meera and turned to his more valuable captive with gleaming eyes. “The crippled lord awakes,” He mocked. 

Bran groaned, doubtlessly feeling the cut on the back of his head now he was back in his own body again. Meera’s insides twisted in pity. Their captor obviously had no such shared sympathies, urging his horse forward and jolting the both of them at once. The sudden movement forced a gasp out of Bran. 

The stranger stopped his horse again, prompting a stony glare from Meera. “I think that’s enough for one night,” He suddenly declared.

What was he doing? They had barely been going for a few hours. Meera desperately tried to make eye contact with Bran, to warn him, but he didn’t look at her. Why?

Jojen. Meera would have forgotten how to breathe if it wasn’t nature’s reflex. Bran had only warged thus far into Hodor and Summer. Both of whom were back at the keep with her brother. What if Meera had been wrong? Or worse, if _Jojen_ had been? She held down her panic at the idea, but the longer she thought about it, the more likely an explanation it was for Bran’s behavior. 

“Get him down,” The stranger ordered as he dismounted. Meera was so willing to obey the command that she very nearly forgot to protest it. 

“I could drop him.” 

He let out an annoyed huff so large its vapor hung around for a moment before dissipating. “Be my guest.” He moved away to tie up the horses and gave Meera enough slack to work. She practically rushed to Bran’s side, hands shaking. He must’ve thought it was out of fear for their predicament, because he risked a reassuring smile. 

“Meera,” He began. His voice was barely more than a breath. “Are—”

She didn’t wait for him to finish his question. Her trembling hands found the front of his furs and clutched against his chest before pulling his face close to hers. “Jojen,” She whispered furiously. “What’s happened?”

The second Bran took to answer felt like an eternity. “He’s fine _,”_ He murmured in response. “It’s alright, he’s with Jon…” Meera didn’t hear his explanation. Relief made her weightless and forced her to lean on Bran and the mare for support. Her brother was okay, and that was all she cared about at the moment. 

How had she doubted it for even a second? Something would have felt off if anything had happened to Jojen, she knew that from experience.

“Meera. _Meera,”_ Bran whispered gently, bringing her back to earth. “I know. I’ll tell you everything later, but I… I need to get down now.” 

His voice faltered and grew so quiet that Meera had to strain and turn to hear it. She remained leaned up against the saddle for a moment longer, her eyes closed and cheek warmed by the leather, before she realized that Bran’s face was inches from her own. He seemed just as surprised as she to recognize that fact.

His eyes widened slightly, and Meera noticed, quite uselessly, how long her friend’s lashes were. The stray observation made her feel awkward enough to hastily step away. “Right,” She directed her gaze to her hands and swallowed. “Okay.”

Figuring out how to get Bran down from the horse without hurting him took longer than it probably should have. Their captor watched from a distance with amusement after he’d set up his bedroll (and it wasn’t lost on Meera he only had the one). When Meera finally got Bran halfway down, the man cruelly chose that moment to pull on her lead and send them both sprawling in the snow.

The top of Bran’s head struck her chin and stunned her, though not nearly enough to spare their captor her baleful gaze. He let out a small chuckle of amusement and went to them both. “Come on now. If you’ll excuse us, my lord. Don’t go anywhere.”

Her friend’s face tightened at the suggestion, but he still said nothing. The man tethered her to one of the trees across from his bedroll, where he could see her. To her relief, he did the same with Bran, though she did wonder why. Once he’d settled everything, he went into his bag and pulled out something small and crusty with mold. Meera wrinkled her nose as he dropped it in Bran’s lap. “Eat.” 

Bran immediately tore it in half and tossed the one piece sideways to Meera before she could warn him not to— though it might have seemed to be nothing, it demonstrated that Bran’s loyalty to her went as deep as her loyalty to him _._ The stranger’s lips turned up into a crude half smile, obviously having reached that very conclusion, before he walked off. Meera didn’t say a word until he began sharpening his dagger with a whetstone from atop his bedroll, far enough away to be out of earshot.

“Bran,” She scolded, though gently. The gesture had been sweet; she couldn’t fault him for it. “Please don’t let him irritate you.”

Bran’s brow furrowed. Clearly, he had no idea about what she was referring to, and he told her so. In response, she held up the piece of bread that he had given her. “That? I’m not going to let him starve you, Meera. You’re my friend.” 

His stubbornness was admirable, and any other time she would have been glad to know how much her prince cared for her, but now was not that moment. “I don’t think he plans to,” She reassured him, even if she doubted the truth of the words. “But I don’t know what he wants from us, or why he even brought me with you. There was no point to it.”

The boy waited patiently for her as she began to explain their conversation while Bran was inside his wolf as quickly as her mouth could move. She left out his mention of the Kingslayer, unsure of what it could mean. When she’d finished, he looked at her with a smile that Meera couldn’t understand the sadness behind. “I don’t know what he wants either,” He agreed. “But if he holds a knife to you, he will get what he wants from me.” 

Meera stared at him in confusion.

“You’ve all had enough harm done to you on my account.” He turned his gaze away from her.

Understanding dawned on the crannog girl, and she stiffened under layers of fur and twine. “Bran, I’m not here because of some oath I swore to you. I’m here because…” Because you’re my friend too and I care about you, she wanted to say, but the words stuck in her throat. “... We have a greater purpose being North of the Wall. I believe in you and the role you have to play in the coming days.”

Bran stared down at his lap with an expression Meera couldn’t decipher. “Still. He will find out some way or another that you are more than just a guide to me. He might already know, and that’s why you’re here.” They both pointedly ignored the darker implications of that realization as he added, “You may as well have something to eat in the meantime.” 

She suppressed a sigh and the desire to crush the tiny piece of bread in her hands to bits. Instead, she raised it to her lips and ate, despite the horrid taste and knowledge it was far past its best. She hoped their captor had at least some knowledge of hunting or they really were in for quite the nasty trip south. She had barely finished when she remembered the more urgent news. “What happened, while you were gone? What happened to Jojen?”

Her friend shrugged, his mouth still full. “I tried to warg into Hodor, to come after us, but he was bound too tight. Jon found him and Jojen. Summer and Ghost are alright, too, and Jojen knows we’re alive. I couldn’t exactly tell him much else, nor could I really understand anything he tried to tell me through Summer’s ears.”

Meera nodded, though she was a bit disappointed that he had no other information for her. The fact that Jojen was safe with Bran’s brother was a relief, at least, and Meera hoped that what Jojen had been trying to tell Bran was that he and Jon were following their tracks. A rescue party was probably their best hope of escaping whatever plans this stranger had for them. Even if forming one was against the code of the Night’s Watch to not get involved in politics, Meera had a feeling that her own brother and Bran’s bastard one would come for them anyway. 

She paused at that thought. 

“He said he came with Jon, didn’t he?” She said slowly. Bran nodded, not having to ask who she was talking about to understand the question. “Why would he come after you and not he? Why even look for you at the Night’s Watch at all?”

“Easier to catch a cripple than a swordsman.”

Meera flinched at the bitterness in his tone, and chose to stick a pin in the subject of their capture for later. They would have a long time to think about it if they weren’t rescued, after all. And if they were, they’d have even longer. “Let me look at your leg,” She decided.

Bran’s head tilted before he remembered what she was talking about. He glared at the cut the stranger had made in his thigh to determine his identity like it had personally done something to offend him. “It doesn’t hurt.”

She rolled her eyes impatiently. “I know it doesn’t. It should be treated anyway.”

“Treated with what?” Bran pointed out.

Meera determined she’d had enough and didn’t exactly need Bran’s permission to scoot closer to him anyway, which she did so as close as her tether would allow. At the sight of the cut, she had to stifle a small gasp and cursed herself. The wound itself wasn’t too terrible and had actually stopped bleeding by now, but she’d been stupid enough to forget that the knife had sliced straight through his breeches. His right leg had been exposed to the cold this entire time, which, in these conditions, was a problem. The skin around the wound was already turning blue. 

She raised her voice so the stranger could hear her, feeling braver than she had all day. “We need a strip of cloth.” Bran’s eyes widened at her confidence, and the stranger stopped sharpening his blade to look up. 

“What?”

She knew he had heard the request the first time, but she repeated it anyway. “We need a strip of cloth.”

He took his time in stalking over. “And what might you need that for, little one?” He asked as he knelt between her and Bran. It didn’t escape Meera’s notice that he carried the blade with him, but she lifted her chin and refused to show him any fear.

“For his leg.”

The man made a show of leaning over and checking the injury. He seemed to take great delight in probing at it with his fingers in such a way that might have hurt Bran if the boy had any feeling below the waist. Meera clenched her teeth as she watched, but made no move to stop him for fear of losing a chance to get what they needed. Finally, the stranger stopped and stood. “He seems fine to me,” He remarked, completely straight-faced. 

Meera bit down on the inside of her cheek in order to not say something unkind. “He isn’t fine,” She protested, ignoring Bran’s warning head shake. “He only needs a small strip of cloth to keep his skin covered. To stay warm.”

The stranger merely stared at her.

“It gets cold enough at night to freeze to death,” She persisted. “If you aren’t going to give him a fur to sleep under, he at least needs something to cover the tear in his breeches and protect his leg.”

The stranger shifted closer to her, his eyes glinting. “I thought you said you weren’t a healer,” He accused. 

Meera’s nails bit into the soft flesh of her palms. “I’m not. I’m a Northerner. Every Northerner knows what to do in the wilderness during the winter from the time they’re a child.”

The backhand shocked her. She gasped immediately and pressed her stinging cheek against her hands as Bran grimaced behind the man’s shoulder in sympathy. “I wouldn’t assume where I was from if I were you.” 

She blinked at that, bewildered. “You’re a Northerner?”

He nodded.

Meera’s rage came out of positively nowhere. She wasn’t usually one prone to anger, but this stranger’s treachery made it boil and overflow at a rate that surprised her. “And yet you kidnap your Prince. This is Brandon Stark, son of Ned Stark, Lord of Winterfell, and brother of Robb Stark, the _King in the North!”_ Her voice rose steadily with every name and title, but there was no steadiness or solidity in the way her hands shook. She knew Bran was trying to signal her over his shoulder, though there was no stopping her now. He already knew who Bran was, there was no danger in that respect, and the least he deserved was some light scolding. “You are a traitor to the North and the honor to which it stands,” She finished, simmering.

Meera knew she’d earned the second slap, so she wasn’t exactly appalled by it and worked her jaw afterwards. What she didn’t expect was their captor staggering backwards with a booming laugh. “My, you have been wandering in the wilderness for a while,” He remarked as he shook his head in disbelief. “I’m going to enjoy this.”

On impulse, she inched closer to Bran, muscles tensing.

Their captor sat down in front of them, twirling his dagger in his hands as he did so. “When was the last time you were in Winterfell, _my lord?”_ Meera cast a panicked glance at Bran, who didn’t respond to either of them and instead kept his gaze fixed on his lap. “No matter. I’m sure you heard about Robb Stark’s wedding?”

Bran’s mouth opened slightly in shock, and a horrible feeling created a stick in Meera’s throat.

What was he playing at?

“It was quite a shock to the rest, too. You see, your _kingly_ brother had already agreed to marry one of Walder Frey’s daughters. And then he goes and fucks some low-born whore. What was it? Westerling, that’s right,” The man drawled as he leaned back. He flicked the tip of the dagger along Meera’s leg and smiled when he received a flinch for his troubles. “Turned out he didn’t have any more of that _Northern honor_ than your father and his bastard son.”

The man switched to Meera’s other leg as he threw her words and Jon’s heritage right back in their faces. Bran’s face flushed in anger and Meera moved her hands over his to keep him from acting, despite the strain the motion put on her tether.

“He married the girl and offered your uncle Edmure’s hand in marriage instead of his own as an apology for breaking the Frey agreement. Now,” He leaned closer to Bran’s face as Meera’s breathing quickened. “I heard _that_ was a beautiful wedding.”

Stop, Meera wanted to say.

“They called it the _Red_ Wedding, my lord. Do you know why?”

Stop.

Bran was now completely white. 

“The floor of the Twins was stained red afterwards, I heard. Lady Catelyn Stark, _King_ Robb, his filthy fucking mutt…” The stranger gave Bran the same toothy grin he’d given them the first time they’d laid eyes on him. “Every one of their fucking necks slit open. Right down to the bone.”

Meera looked between Bran, who was still frozen, and the stranger. “You’re lying,” She challenged, though her voice was shaky. 

“Look at your crippled lord’s face. He knows I’m not.” The stranger rubbed his hands together and yawned loudly. “Good night.” And with that, he went back off to his bedroll, sending Meera a smile as he went. Despite her vision blurring with tears, she found the ability to glare through them just fine. 

Bran didn’t speak at first. The boy was clearly trying to keep his face devoid of emotion, but it wasn’t working. He choked, once, twice, before he bent over their tangled fingers. 

“Meera.” 

The way he said her name before he broke into cracked sobs was enough to make her cry on its own. She didn’t ask him whether he believed their captor. He knew.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Meera's voice has been very hard to get right in a way that I hadn't anticipated. She only got real screentime in the show after Jojen died, and in the book she's quite cheerful, so her characterization in a serious situation when she knows Jojen is safe and she and Bran are in danger is something we haven't really seen. Hopefully this version is alright. 
> 
> Bran's chapter is next, and obviously deals with some heavy stuff. 
> 
> Until next time-- don't forget to comment and leave kudos!


	4. Bran II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bran and Meera pull an all-nighter. Later, Bran does some detective work.

_He’d climbed the broken tower, even though she’d told him not to so many times. His legs had been working then, and he had been whole, before the golden man had hovered over him. “The things I do for love,” He’d said, before his glittering hand shoved Bran backwards._

_His very first dream of the three-eyed crow had come during the fall._

_He remembered it well. What came before was fuzzy, the golden man’s face a whisp on the wind, but he remembered the crow so clearly. The bird had cawed and teased above him, always dancing just out of the reach of his outstretched fingers. He was falling, falling for what seemed an eternity, yet the bird would land on his arm and eat from his hand anyway. The three-eyed crow never feared hitting the ground._

_He’d fallen, but then he’d flown, soared, over Winterfell, over the golden man and the broken tower. He’d seen Robb, puzzling over letters and nearly tearing out his hair with stress and worry. He’d seen Theon, working through his own issues with a sword on a training dummy. He saw Maester Luwin, looking over a map and marking it._

_Before he was a three-eyed crow, he was a wolf. Even in the sky, that part of his soul still grounded him. He couldn’t forget._

_He flew South, and felt one of his pack die. The gentlest one, the Lady. She had been caught, and she had been slain. By unwilling hands, yes, but she had been slain. He felt her throat expand with her dying howl and relax when it was cut. He followed her body North, where it was buried with the proper reverence._

_He flew farther North, beyond the Wall. He saw Castle Black beneath it, felt the Army of the Dead, the Others, the wildlings running to escape them. All the while, he could feel each wolf, each life that they stood for in his pack. He tasted blood from the fleetest when he ran and tore through battles. He heard the mournful cries of the lonely she-wolf along the river. He smelled fear and betrayal and love from the white brother in the North, and salt from the green-eyed brother in the wild. Though not always at the front of his mind, he could always feel them, no matter where he flew. They were a constant reminder of what he’d left behind._

_It was many years before he felt one pass again. When he did, the pain was harsher than before, cutting straight to his heart with nothing stopping it. It was the warrior wolf, he knew. He’d been caged, just like the maiden of the pack._

_Still, he kept flying._

Bran wept into Meera’s hands, and his own, for a long while. He knew she questioned his conviction in the legitimacy of their captor’s claims, but, bless her, she said nothing. He hadn’t told her how he’d felt it. He’d ignored it, weeks ago, as much as one could ignore the feeling of being torn apart, and hoped in total vanity that the confusing bond between him, Summer, and the wolves had somehow created the illusion.

The harsh words of the stranger had only made the truth undeniable, not opened his eyes to it.

His cries rose and fell with the wind as the night wore on. Just when he thought it was over, sorrow would bring another memory or regret to the forefront of his mind and tears would fall anew. All of it flashed through his mind that night, from his selfish words to Maester Luwin that condemned his mother for leaving his bedside when he was crippled to Robb helping him with his archery years before. 

When his sobs faded to quiet gasps that rattled deep inside his chest, Meera pressed a comforting kiss to the top of his head. Though the gesture was kind, it threatened to make things worse again, as it only reminded him all the times Catelyn Stark had done the same for him. He pressed his face further into his hands to disguise the expression.

“I’m sorry.”

Meera’s voice was small and empty. He finally heaved himself up, still sniffing, and looked at her, only to realize she’d been crying too. Though not as hard or as desperately as Bran, she too had cried for the fall of House Stark and the murder of Bran’s mother and brother. She rubbed her red eyes against the fur on her shoulder when Bran faced her and offered him a weak smile. “It doesn’t help anything, I know.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Bran agreed. He leant his head back now, against the trunk of the tree they were bound to, despite the pain of the cut in his scalp. His eyes were directed to the sky, past the trees overhead, and he wondered which afterlife, and thus, which of his parents, Robb had joined— their father and the Old Gods, or their mother in the Seven Heavens. 

The thought almost made the boy weep again. He was now without parents completely, a new kind of alone in the world. An orphaned cripple, or perhaps a crippled orphan.

His friend fell silent at the look on his face, and offered him no more attempts at comfort. Instead, she moved her arms back to her own lap. Bran saw how red her wrists had turned under the twine that had bound them from pulling, and his heart softened slightly. 

“Can you reach?” He asked her quietly after casting a side glance at their captor. Meera looked up, startled at the sudden change in him. She tested her bonds with another tentative pull, wincing as she did so. Bran noticed with alarm that a trickle of blood ran down the side of her arm and stopped her. “Nevermind.”

She stopped, and Bran instead pulled on his own. He reached for her hands, and tried to muss with the knots around her wrists, but without play in his own bonds he had no success. His heart not being much in it didn’t help the attempt either. After a few minutes, Meera pushed him away and settled her hand across the cut in his breeches to shield it from the cold. “Don’t, Bran. Just try to get some sleep.”

“Like I’m able to.” His eyes were sore from crying. 

She nodded and accepted the statement without complaint. After a moment of silence, he leaned sideways, and settled his head upon her shoulder. She rested her cheek, in turn, against his hair. They sat that way for a time as Bran drained his last few tears away. Though he knew it was selfish to be glad for her presence, as it would lead to nothing good for her, he couldn’t imagine what the last hours would have been like without her. At least with someone near, he could pretend he wasn’t alone. 

They sat for a while, and Meera’s breathing gradually slowed. Bran wasn’t sure if she was awake or not, so when he spoke, he made sure it was in a hushed tone. “There was a time,” He started. Meera didn’t stir, so he carried on, even quieter. “There was a time after I woke up from the fall. Mother had already left Winterfell, the last time I saw her was before it happened.”

His voice cracked at that. 

“It was just me, Robb, and Rickon as the Starks in Winterfell. Father was in King’s Landing with my sisters. They… they’d already told me by then that I’d never walk again. Never climb again, any of it.” There was a time when those would have been painful words to say, admitting to be a cripple. “Robb came to see me almost every day. Despite being Lord of the castle then, he somehow found the time. One day he came to see me, just after supper. Old Nan,” He paused, wondering for the hundredth time since they’d left home if the old woman he’d called his caretaker for so long was dead too. “She was telling me a story. One of the scary ones, just as I liked, too. Robb sent her to get her own supper so he could sit with me for a while.”

He remembered bitterly the days when his greatest excitement was seeing who would come to visit him. As if he was some oddity locked away in a cage. The Broken Wolf of Winterfell, confined to his bed. 

“I asked him if what they’d told me about my legs was true. When he didn’t say anything, I told him I’d rather have been dead. He turned to me with anger I’d never seen from him before, and rebuked me, yelled at me for saying such a horrible thing,” He paused. “Yet I said it again.” 

Bran had meant the statement then. Now, he wasn’t sure. Now, he knew there were far worse things to lose than one’s legs; he’d lost plenty of those, too. 

He wasn’t sure what the purpose of telling Meera the tale was. It wasn’t just some random moment he’d chosen from Robb’s life, or his own, he knew that much. Perhaps he had no purpose at all. The best explanation he could come up with was allowing someone else to know it, since the only other person who had shared the memory now lay dead in some Southern grave, if his murderers had even bothered to give him one.

It wasn’t even until Meera shifted that he was sure that she had heard. Her next words weren’t what he’d expected at all. “I understand.”

“How?” He hadn’t meant for the question to sound so harsh.

Meera was silent for a moment, gathering her courage. “Jojen…” She began, her breath warm against Bran’s forehead. “Wasn’t the only brother I had. Once.” 

The boy’s brow furrowed at that. Meera and Jojen had never mentioned another sibling. That fact was enough to tell him that the fate of their brother wasn’t a pleasant one, so he listened. 

“I’ll spare you the details of how he died, though it wasn’t, I mean. He didn’t die in battle.” Meera’s voice was tight. “For so long, I wished it had been me.”

Bran lifted his head from her shoulder as the wind picked up. He didn’t know how to respond, even though he himself had said it first. The idea of Meera dying troubled him, but the thought of her _wanting_ to die troubled him even more. If two wishes had been offered to him at that moment, the only thing he would have wanted more than the ability to wrap his arms around Meera and pull her close would be the lives of his mother and brother.

Meera continued on after a brief pause. “The feeling doesn’t go away. You only learn how to manage it as time goes on.”

“What was his name?” 

She was quiet for so long that Bran wondered if she’d heard him. “Eddard.” 

“After…?”

“Yes, after your father.” 

His mouth fell open in shock, and he spat out a mouthful of his own hair that was blown in as a result. Meera laughed, unexpectedly, and the shock of it made Bran follow in her footsteps. Laughing felt better than he could have imagined, even though at the same time it felt like some kind of taboo. 

Once their chuckles subsided, Bran laid his head back down. “I’m still sorry.” She whispered, though it didn’t matter to him. There was nothing to forgive Meera for, but left without laughter, Bran’s mind began fighting him again.

“I suppose I’m the true Lord of Winterfell now.” His voice was dull. “That explains why I’m here. Why he took me.”

Meera gently shushed him and shook her head. “Don’t worry about these things tonight, my prince. Let yourself have time to grieve for one night. There will be plenty of time for escape and plotting later.”

He’d never hated her nickname for him before, yet now all it did was remind him that he wasn’t a prince anymore. He had never been one anyway, not really. Not even in Winterfell, in the months while he was the acting lord of the castle and Robb was fighting as King of the North, because no prince would have let Theon Greyjoy take his home from him. No prince would have left his home behind and travelled north of the Wall chasing a three-eyed crow.

Now, Brandon Stark wasn’t really anything. Heir of a dead house, perhaps. Broken, definitely. But a prince? No. Robb was dead, and he had died thinking Bran (and Rickon, for that matter) would be waiting for him. 

There was no King, so there couldn’t be a Prince in the North, either. 

“Don’t call me that.” It was a request, not an order, but he didn’t want to say _please,_ for all the good the word had done them. He hoped she understood that too, and was relieved when he felt her nod. 

She’d been right, tonight was a night for grieving, no matter how much he didn’t want it to be. So he laid there until light broke over the trees, his regrets and memories entangling themselves with questions and answers he would never receive. The only thing that he knew for certain was the fact that he couldn’t lose someone else. 

Though his friend didn’t speak, he was reassured to know that she was there. Of course, needing someone in a new way brought back the feelings of shame from when he’d first been crippled. Now, though, when there was so much else in his world that was wrong, his old enemy was cast aside. All he could do was hold on to and need Meera, his shame be damned to hell.   
  
Their captor got up at the crack of dawn, and without a word to the two, walked to the horses and readied them for the day’s ride. The sleepless pair watched, and Bran dreaded the moment he would take Meera away again. When he didn’t do so right away, the crannogwoman took the opportunity to whisper into his ear for the first time in hours. “Warg into Hodor or Summer later. He didn’t know what you were doing yesterday, and I had to lie. I don’t think he believed me.”

In the sadness of it all, they hadn’t talked about the events of the past day all that much. Emotionally and physically drained as Bran was he could only nod weakly and sit up straight. His head stabbed in protest at the motion and he was forced to stifle a groan. In dealing with his heartache, he had neglected his body’s pain, which was now paying the price. 

Meera gave him a sad smile at the sound. “I wish I could do something,” She murmured regretfully as her eyes traveled over his injuries. “Though I suppose we match now.”

Before Bran could worry over what she had meant, she soothed him by turning to face him completely. Her bottom lip was split on one side, presumably from when their captor had struck her last night, and was stained with dried blood. Bran knew he had earned a similar mark from Karl during their brief time at the Keep though he hadn’t had the displeasure of seeing it yet. “We make quite the pair.”

“We were always the company of the damned,” She responded lightly. “Now we just have the scars to prove it.”

Though the words were ominous, the tone with which she said them almost made him laugh again, the wretchedness of the sound being the only thing that kept it from escaping. “The misfits of Westeros,” He agreed. 

“Two frog-eaters, a simpleton, a direwolf, and a Stark.” 

“A cripple,” _Among other things,_ he amended her without thinking, though when she glared, he fixed more of the statement. “A greenseer, a crannogwoman, a simpleton, a direwolf, and a crippled Stark.”

“If only they could see us now.” She snorted in laughter at the absurdity, and after a moment, so did he. As it ran through his body, clearing his lungs like clean air did for smoke, he changed his mind. Meera wasn’t just any friend who was a shoulder to cry on. She had always had a talent for lifting his spirits when everything seemed so bleak. She was special. 

It wasn’t long before they got moving again. Their captor must have been worried about someone in pursuit, because he spurred them across miles of frozen wilderness as fast as they could travel. Bran grew sick from being slung haphazardly across the saddle and the rocking motion that came with it, but didn’t dare to complain. The man seemed to delight in aiming mocking taunts at him anyways, whether it was about the fate of his family members or the state of his legs, and he didn’t want to encourage him. So he closed his ears to every comment, especially the ones involving what he called _the Red Wedding._

The stranger eventually turned his attention to Meera, who followed Bran’s example and said nothing. He asked her about her name, where she’d come from, and kept calling her ‘little one’, which made Bran’s skin crawl. A part of him wanted to snap at the man, and forbid him from ever speaking to her like that again, but a much larger part knew that would be pointless at best.

They did learn at least part of the reason why he’d taken her, and thankfully it wasn’t as sinister as either of them had guessed. The man clearly had no idea how much or how little Bran could do on his own as he had them stop once and ordered Meera to help Bran relieve himself and give him water when he was finished. Bran nearly objected to the second order, let alone the first, before he realized any time given where he could have whispered conversations and reassurances with Meera was precious. So he allowed his friend to drag him to a tree to do as the stranger had commanded and took the opportunity to tell her how uncomfortable it was to be slung over the horse like he had been.

Meera of course looked away while he did what he had to do, and caught the water skin that was thrown to her. “Careful with that,” Their captor warned. “Haven’t got a whole lot.”

Bran called back tentatively. “I thought you needed us alive.”

“No. I need _you_ alive,” The man corrected, making him tense with anger. He wasn’t looking at Meera but he somehow doubted she was fazed by that. “No one said shit about the girl.” 

Bran didn’t take the water skin when he’d finished and Meera tried to lift it to his lips. “You first,” He murmured. Her mouth pressed itself into a thin, hard line, and she shook her head in silent refusal. “Do it.” He knew she hadn’t had anything since yesterday morning. Neither had he, but he couldn’t risk the man taking the skin away before she could drink too. He wouldn’t watch Meera be neglected.

Meera glanced over her shoulder before taking a swig that was obviously intended to be quick. Her eyes closed once the liquid passed her cracked lips, and a smile crossed Bran’s when he saw the momentary look of content that washed over her. It was a look he wasn’t sure he’d ever seen her wear, one he concluded she deserved to make more often. She probably would have, too, if he hadn’t dragged her along on this journey. 

Upon realizing she’d taken one more gulp than she should have, she lowered the skin and held it up to Bran. “Your turn.” He moved to take it before remembering the stranger’s order, and grimaced. His hands paused over hers like she had done last night. 

He tilted his head back and allowed his friend to trickle water into his mouth. Right away, he understood how she’d felt. The liquid passed over his rough tongue, soothing him and bringing him back to a time when he’d been able to drink when he wanted. The memory made his head start ringing again, and he forced himself to concentrate on the sweet, cool water running down his throat instead. Too soon, she pulled the skin away. He unconsciously followed it and had to shove back a whine of protest when it threatened to escape him. “Sorry,” She whispered as she reluctantly capped it. 

“It’s fine,” Bran replied quietly as he watched the movement of her hand, as though entranced. Her touch was so warm, and as soon as he no longer felt her fingers against his own, he found himself missing the sensation even more than he missed the water. 

“Hurry it up. I haven’t got all day,” Their captor called impatiently from next to the horses, where he too had opened a water skin. 

Meera rolled her eyes at their captor’s impatience and began to haul Bran back in his direction as best she could. While they moved, the two had yet another whispered conversation. “You think you can sit on the horse?” 

He would have shrugged if Meera wasn’t having such a rough time of moving him already. They were used to physical closeness, it being necessary due to his condition, but with both their hands bound, it wasn’t an easy job. “I haven’t had a chance to try since Winterfell,” He admitted. “Tyrion Lannister designed a saddle that strapped my legs in and recommended a horse be trained to rein and voice commands, but they were probably both destroyed when the castle was sacked.”

His throat constricted at the memory of trotting circles around Robb the day the saddle had been finished, though he refused to get caught up in his grief again when his captor could see him. 

“Sitting up… would be better for you,” Meera panted as they got closer. “I’ll give it a try.”

Bran cast an annoyed glance at the stranger, who was observing their slow progress with amusement. “If he doesn’t have time to waste, how come he doesn’t help you?” He bitterly wondered out loud. Meera didn’t answer, and simply bore him on, so he decided to simply enjoy the last few moments in her arms that he would have until she was forced to leave again. 

The stranger wasn’t happy about Meera’s attempts to get Bran upright on the horse, but when she succeeded at it, he let him stay, for which the Broken Wolf was grateful. His head didn’t throb as much when he wasn’t upside down. The downside was that it actually allowed them to travel faster and, to Bran’s dismay, put more distance between them and any possible rescue. At least he could think more clearly with this position, even speak if he needed to.

Since last night had been his time for grieving, he turned his mind to their current situation, despite his exhaustion and the newly formed hole in his heart. He knew that it would never heal, so there was no point in waiting for it to do so. Instead, he occupied his mind with questions about who their captor could be.

Since the man had said he was taking them to Winterfell, and precious little else, Bran didn’t have much to go on, which was nothing short of infuriating. He bore no colors other than the black of the Night’s Watch, and didn’t even wear a pin with his house sigil like he used to himself. Bran had left Winterfell close to two years ago now, and had no idea of the current political situation in the North. His best guess was that there was some type of civil war between the former vassal houses, with no clear successor besides Sansa, who last Bran knew was still held hostage in King’s Landing by the Lannisters. 

He shuddered at the idea, and tried not to let his fear for the last of his family set a lump in his throat. 

_Sansa, stuck in King’s Landing._ He had no idea if she was still alive either. Lady had died long ago, he knew, so feeling for her wolf through Summer would tell him nothing. He wondered if Robb had been trying to rescue her, as he hadn’t received any letters from his brother since he had left Winterfell in his hands due to fear of their interception. He wasn’t sure if he should hope that he had tried or that he hadn’t, if it would be worse for Sansa to think that she’d been left to suffer and die or have hope of a reprieve before being crushed. Just as he had wished for death after being crippled, he knew if she was alive she was probably wishing the opposite. 

He and Sansa had rarely gotten along as children, but the thought still made his heart ache.

The last Bran had heard, Arya was still missing, as she had been since their father’s execution. Bran had never been as optimistic as Meera, but he dared to hope that Arya was still out there somewhere. If anyone could survive the wilds of Southern Westeros and scrape their survival from bits and pieces of nothing, it was she. After all, if he, a cripple, could survive North of the Wall when the rest of the world thought him dead, Arya and her ‘touch of wolf’s blood’ would find it simple to do the same in the South. 

At least Jon was safe. He knew that much for certain. He hadn’t thought so for a long time, after he’d seen him being attacked by wildlings at Queenscrown, but now he knew that his older brother was alive and as dutiful as ever. It was ironic, wasn’t it, that his bastardy was now his plate armor, not the chink within it. The thought made Bran smile for a moment. Jon would live, and any reason for that was worth celebrating. 

And Rickon…

Bran’s little smile faded as quickly as it had come.

Rickon was the smallest, the only one younger than Bran. He would no doubt have grown up to be just as wild as Arya, if not more so. He remembered, when they’d split up at Winterfell, how the small boy wanted to come with him, to protect him North of the Wall. As much as Bran had wanted him to come, he knew Maester Luwin had been right. Robb was going to war and Bran was heading into the unknown. If anything happened to them, then _Rickon_ would be the heir to Winterfell—

Bran would have cursed his own stupidity if he were in private. As it was, he simply curled his fingers into his mount’s mane. 

Something _had_ happened to Robb. Bran was the true heir to Winterfell at the moment, but if he died, then the lordship would simply pass on to his younger brother. That was why their captor wanted him alive. And if Bran proved to be too much trouble, why he would prefer to kill him than to let him go, to remove that piece from the game board instead of allowing it to wander into the unknown.

 _He didn’t have Rickon_ . Bran suspected it wouldn’t be that way for long, though. If the situation in the North was really that turbulent, perhaps a rival house to whichever one their captor was pledged held him captive. Or maybe he and Osha were so far undercover people still thought Rickon Stark was dead, flayed and burned by Theon Greyjoy. The idea made Bran wonder — how had the stranger found out _Bran_ was alive? Had someone found Rickon out and tortured that information out of him? The idea made him want to vomit.

That couldn’t be right, though. Their captor had delighted in telling him about the murder of his mother and eldest brother so much that if Rickon had been hurt he probably would have taunted him with that information as well. Besides, Shaggydog was still alive, he could feel that through Summer. Of all the wolves, Shaggy was the most unflinchingly loyal, not to mention vicious, and would never have let someone lay a hand on his master when there was still breath in his body.

Rickon was still alive. The taste of salt he knew from the connection between wolves had to mean he had gone to White Harbor and the sea, like Osha had considered. 

He was _safe_ , and away from whatever Bran was being brought back to. For now, at least.

He couldn’t bring forth a smile. After all, Rickon was still in danger, as were the rest of them with perhaps the sole exception of Jon. But his captors didn’t know where he was, so there was still hope. 

He twisted to look at Meera, his immediate reaction being to share the realization. It took a moment to place her, her light gray mare a slightly darker smudge against the landscape than the trees that surrounded them, but when he did, his eyes found hers, and locked. 

Maybe hope was the wrong word. Robb and his mother were gone, and there might still be no saving grace for House Stark. But maybe enough of the people Brandon Stark loved were still alive for the Broken Wolf to hold on to.

He turned his attention back to the issues at hand, and continued to try and figure out the knotted web of information.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay on this one. Chapter Five has been struggling with me, and I'm trying to stay working a few chapters ahead.
> 
> This is actually my favorite chapter so far. It always felt strange to me that Bran never really found out about the Red Wedding as himself in the show (though he obviously knows as the 3ER), and it's kind of ambiguous whether or not he knows in the books. At most, he knows Grey Wind is dead because of his connection to Summer, but he definitely doesn't know about the Red Wedding itself. Thus, it was important to me that he finds out for sure here, and gets to grieve as Brandon Stark, not as the Three-Eyed Raven. 
> 
> I wanted to portray Bran's grief as accurate to my own experiences as possible. Over the past two years, I've lost some important people in my life as well. Of course, it's not exactly the same thing, as Bran and Meera are kind of in an awful situation and need to keep their heads on straight if they're going to survive. They kind of need to push aside feelings to a certain point. It's not easy.
> 
> On a lighter note, there are two important things!
> 
> 1) I hope the addition of Meera and Jojen's brother isn't too immersion-breaking. I reread chapters and looked through wikis to make sure I wasn't directly defying lore, though I could be wrong. He is 100% dead though, and is the only character I've made up for this.
> 
> 2), and more importantly, I am *dramatic pause* changing the title of this story, from "To Chain a Wolf" to "The Burdens We Bear" when I post the next chapter. Just letting you know so that those of you who have this bookmarked/subscribed aren't too shocked.
> 
> Until next time! Leave a comment or kudos (or both!) if you enjoyed. :)


	5. Jon II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jojen is a weird guy. Jon really doesn't know what to make of him.

_ Together, they collapsed at the top of the ledge at the top of the world. _

It only took a few seconds of dedicated thought for Jon to figure out which of his two suspects had taken his brother. It should have been obvious from the moment he found Jojen and Hodor in the hut Locke warned them to stay away from, but he had had other things to worry about in the last few hours besides the name of the man who had taken his younger brother. 

It didn’t matter, anyway. The man had given up both his name and his life the second he decided to forsake the Night’s Watch vows and kidnap Bran. 

He didn’t tell Grenn or Edd that he had figured it out, though. It had been hard enough to convince them to let him go when they’d thought Rast was just as possible a candidate. Jon had been telling the truth when he said that he would choose to track Rast instead of Bran if he had to, but he didn’t want to give them more reason to doubt his loyalty when he already knew where it lay. 

Jojen insisted on leaving right away, while Jon was torn between doing so or helping his brothers in black with Craster’s wives, most of whom were stubbornly refusing to speak to ‘those crows.’ It wasn’t until Grenn pulled him aside and told him to leave that Jon felt free to do so. Jojen seemed pleased enough with this, but th ey didn’t get far.

Jon led them back to where he and his brothers had left their horses, but was shocked to find them all gone. At first, in his confusion, he thought he’d misremembered the spot, before Summer sniffed out some barely visible tracks in the snow. Even with only the dim light of the moon to see by, Jon could tell that the horses had been deliberately driven off. 

“Shit.” Jon rarely swore like Robb or Theon had, growing up, but this was a situation that qualified for the use of such language. With no horses, they had little chance of catching up with Locke.  _ Especially with Jojen and Hodor.  _

He had of course tried to convince the Reed boy to go to Castle Black and receive treatment from Maester Aemon, but Bran’s friend wouldn’t entertain the idea for even a moment. He could understand not wanting to abandon his sister to whatever fate she was being dragged towards — he would’ve done the same for Sansa or Arya, and already was doing so for Bran— but it was the way he declined the offer that intrigued him, with a sad sort of clarity. Almost like he wanted to accept but couldn’t. 

“This is Meera’s,” Jojen announced. Though his hand pointed to a single small footprint near the center of the mess of tracks, his vacant gaze was directed somewhere into the woods. “She’s alive.”

Jon didn’t bother pointing out that he’d already been quite sure of that. There was no reason for Locke to take Jojen’s sister unless he saw some value in doing so, as it was always much harder to transport two captives rather than one. “Find their trail, Summer,” He commanded his brother’s direwolf before turning to his own. Summer was all too eager to obey.

He crouched in front of Ghost and scratched behind his ears, an act that made his companion stretch out his muzzle in contentment. “You remember Rast, boy? Big, ugly fellow?” He murmured, too quietly for Jojen to hear. Jon trusted his wolf knew who he was talking about, so he wasn’t disappointed when Ghost’s red, intelligent eyes blinked in understanding. “Find which way he went.”

_ The Wall may have divided the land, but the red glow of the setting sun did not discriminate that way. It streaked across the skies of the North, and, well, the Deep North. Ygritte’s North.  _

The white wolf pressed his nose to the ground. While the two littermates sniffed in circles around the area, Jon turned to Hodor. The poor halfwit had staggered along behind them on the walk, muttering “Hodor, hodor, hodor,” as he went. Jon had wanted to try and send his old friend back to Castle Black as well, but Jojen had had none of that, either, saying that they would need his strength to help Bran along once he was safe again. Jon tried to be angry about it, but couldn’t, really, as Hodor seemed more willing to depart with him and Jojen than to remain with the unfamiliar Grenn and Lucan for too long. 

“Come here, Hodor.” Jon pulled some bandages he had taken from the keep out of his bag. While the wolves were occupied, he set to work treating the former stablehand’s injuries as best he could. Jojen peered over his shoulder as he worked.

Jon couldn’t help but grow slightly irritated with him. The way he observed Jon’s actions and stubbornly insisted on things, not to mention the solemn air he brought with him wherever he went, were difficult to deal with. 

Still, he knew Howland Reed was an old friend of his father’s during Robert’s Rebellion and Jojen was clearly very close with Bran. The Reeds had earned Jon’s respect if nothing else. 

“They’ve picked up the scents.”

“Hodor.”

Jon looked up at that, and his heart sank upon seeing that Ghost was on one side of the clearing and Summer on the other. “Ghost can follow whatever trail you set him on. Let’s go.” Jojen didn’t seem at all concerned with that realization, to the bastard’s surprise.

Every new line of the Reed boy’s riddle didn’t get Jon any closer to his answer. They only served to confuse him more. 

He hesitated at letting Ghost out of his sight again. Last time that had happened, he’d lost his wolf for the better part of two years, but the alternative was to go with his old friend and abandon his brother. “Go on, Ghost. Come back to us in a few hours.” 

Jojen watched the white wolf disappear into the darkness with that same unreadable look Jon was getting so tired of. After a moment’s pause, the other boy turned and walked after Summer. Despite Jon’s annoyance, he could appreciate that the crannogman seemed to be recovering a bit of color in his skin. He seemed as tired as ever, dragging his feet along the ground as they trailed after Bran’s wolf, but he didn’t waver.

_ Neither did she. He hadn’t known she was tired from the climb until she pulled herself over the edge and slumped on top of the ice. She laid her head inches from his, warm breath ghosting across his cheeks in puffs, knowing smirk a delirious grin of victory. _

Jon guessed after an hour of painfully slow progress that they were only a few miles from Craster’s. Three at most, and Hodor was clearly struggling. “We’re going to have to stop.” He called to Jojen, who hadn’t spoken in a while. 

The crannogman was trailing along behind him, leaning heavily on a branch several inches taller than he was. “We can’t,” He mumbled. Jon could barely see his face in the dark now, but he could imagine Jojen’s piercing green eyes narrowing in determination. “He has a head start on us.” 

Jon suppressed a sigh. If Jojen hadn’t insisted on coming, he would’ve had a better chance at catching Locke on his own. “You and Hodor both need rest so we can chase them at full strength in the light. When was the last time you slept?” The boy didn’t answer, confirming Jon’s suspicions. He halted in his tracks. “We’ll stop here, and I’m taking the first watch.”

Jojen didn’t argue with him this time, though he did stubbornly drag himself a few more steps. Jon was thankful. After the toll of the last day, he couldn’t handle another quarrel, no matter how minor. “Good. Try to get some rest. I’ll build a fire.”

“They’ll see.”

“No, he won’t. He’s miles ahead of us by now, and we need the warmth.” Jon set to work gathering kindling, while Jojen tried breaking his walking stick. After a few attempts, Hodor did it for him.

“Hodor.”

“Thank you,” Jojen mumbled softly to the large man. He leaned against one of the many trees and watched as Jon sparked the flame to life with ease. Between years in Winterfell, the Night’s Watch, and the wildlings, lighting one was one of the most natural skills he’d ever have, right behind swinging a sword and eating with a fork. Though, to be fair, he hadn’t used the second during his year north of the Wall.

He helped Hodor and Summer settle, and checked the wrappings on their wounds before choosing his own spot, across the fire from Jojen. He noted with exasperation that the Reed boy still wasn’t trying to rest and was observing his every move. For a few minutes they sat in silence, with Jon occasionally poking and adding fuel to the fire as he waited for Jojen to drift off. Hodor had no such issues and was snoring softly almost immediately. 

When even Summer, who stood at attention for a long while, started dozing, Jon decided he’d had enough. “Seriously, Jojen. When was the last time you slept?”

The boy shrugged in response. “I tried last night.”

“You didn’t?”

“I couldn’t.” He didn’t elaborate, and Jon didn’t ask. It felt too personal a question to ask a man he had known for a few hours at most. 

He went for a different tactic, instead posing a question that he had been waiting to ask. “As long as you’re awake, you want to tell me what you were doing with Bran this far north of the Wall?”

Jojen closed his eyes. Before Jon had time to worry over the possibility of  _ Jojen Reed  _ making an actual joke by pretending to fall asleep, he snapped them open again. “We were helping him look for someone.”

“ _ Bran  _ was looking for someone up here?” Jon repeated dubiously. “Who? Why?”

“If I tell you, you won’t let him go.”

_ Pop.  _ One of the logs sparked between them as Jon lifted his brows with barely contained rage. 

“He’s my  _ brother,  _ Reed.” Jojen was lucky Jon hadn’t drawn his sword.

“And you’ll want to protect him. You’re already thinking about taking him back to Castle Black with you, regardless of what he wants, aren’t you?”

The thought had crossed Jon’s mind, of course. Thorne wouldn’t be happy if he dragged Bran back with him, but as long as he had Rast’s head in hand as well he doubted the older man could complain too much. It wasn’t even like he had a right to in the first place. Either way, where on earth would be a safer place for Bran? Surely the group’s capture by Karl Tanner and his ilk had shown Jojen that. “So what if I am? He’s one of the few family members I have left.”

“He’s not a boy anymore, Jon Snow. He’s nearly a man grown now, he can make decisions for himself.” 

“Like hell he can—” Jon started off furiously, before realizing all he was doing was proving the crannogman’s point. He tried to blunt the edge in his voice before he continued. “If it were Meera, wouldn’t you want to keep her safe?”

“Out of the two of us, I’m the one who needs protecting.” He couldn’t exactly say he was surprised; at least the boy was under no illusions of his obvious weaknesses. Stranger still, Jon noticed there was that same sad note from earlier in his tone. “There is nothing wrong with wanting those you love to be safe. The problem only starts when you keep them from what they need to do.”

Despite himself, Jon was impressed. The crannogman’s sense of responsibility went beyond his years. He wished bitterly that he’d been as dutiful at his age.

_ He was right, after all. Too often, duty could be on one side and love on the other.  _

He shivered involuntarily at the memory that threatened to distract him. “Still. Wouldn’t allowing him to go off into the unknown be simpler when  _ I know  _ what it is he has to do?”

Now it was Jojen’s turn to look annoyed at Jon’s recognition of the fallacy. “When we get him back, you can ask him that question yourself.” He turned away, probably hoping the brusque statement would be enough to end the conversation. 

Normally, it wouldn’t have been. Jon would have liked nothing more than to pressure him for an answer until he got one, but something held him back from asking tonight. He told himself it was the Reed boy’s obvious exhaustion though he was sure there was more to it. Tomorrow, he’d interrogate Jojen, and get some answers. 

Tonight, he would keep watch. And as the crannogman’s soft snores rose to join Hodor’s, Jon desperately tried to push thoughts of love to the back of his mind, and keep the ones concerning his duty to the realm at the forefront.

Somehow, a finely honed scowl and an even sharper tongue occupied that space anyway.

_ Just for a moment, he allowed himself to forget the rest of the world, as she pressed her lips hungrily against his. His world was right here in front of him, and here it would remain until its fragile structure had to come crashing down.  _

*

Jon kept watch for a few hours, each minute left alone with his thoughts harder than the last. A certain wildling kept coming to mind, despite his best efforts. 

He stayed awake until his eyelids grew heavy enough that he figured he’d be useless if something did creep up on them. Jon wasn’t sure who he would have woken up, but luckily, Ghost had returned by then and saved him from making a choice between injured Summer, simple Hodor, and ill Jojen, who tossed and turned so much in his sleep Jon nearly walked over to him anyway. 

He only got a few hours himself, having instructed Ghost to wake him up when there was light to see by. His dreams were filled with a red haze, flashes of Ygritte, and a forest of pine like the one he had fallen asleep in, though the smells were much sharper and tangible than they usually were. 

He didn’t have much time to sort through his dreams, however. His old friend obeyed his instruction and awoke him with a wet nose pressed to his cheek, and though he wanted to stay huddled in the snow for a few seconds longer, the lack of noise from his companions waking as well brought him to his feet. 

Hodor and Summer were awake and blinking blearily, but it was Jojen that caught Jon’s concern. The boy was propped up against his tree, his eyes open and unseeing. His body was unnaturally still, and his forehead was shining with sweat like it had been when Jon had first found him.

_ “Oh, gods,” _ Jon mumbled, all of his irritation with the boy vanishing as he stumbled over. He almost slipped into the remains of the now-extinguished fire in his eagerness to jam his icy fingers under Jojen’s collar and against the pulse point beneath his ear.  _ Fuck. Fuck. I killed him. Well, he killed himself because he refused to go with Grenn and Edd, but I’m just as much to blame, aren’t I? I killed Howland Reed’s son. Fuck. _

To his relief, he could feel Jojen’s heartbeat throbbing under his fingertips. The cursing in his head, usually so rare for him, subsided, though his confusion was not curbed. Jojen’s eyes were still open and as blank as before, but Jon now realized his chest was rising and falling with deep, isolated breaths. 

He removed his hand from under Jojen’s collar and instead settled it on his shoulder. “Reed?” He asked, tentatively. Jojen still didn’t respond, so Jon shook him slightly. “Jojen.” Still no response. Jon shook him harder, his earlier fear replaced by complete befuddlement. “Jojen?”

When the boy still showed no visible sign of life, Jon resorted to more extreme measures and dealt him a slap across the face. Though he tried not to put his weight behind the blow, he’d always had large, meaty hands, and wasn’t surprised that this was what brought Jojen back to earth. He sputtered and made a horrible retching sound that made Jon back away from him quickly, but at least he was alive. 

“Thank the gods,” Jon muttered as he lifted a hand to his face. The boy made no complaints at the blow, thankfully, though Jon was sure it hadn’t been pleasant. “What the hell was that?”

Jojen mopped his brow and hesitated. His straw colored-hair stuck up at odd angles, but neither of them cared. Jon’s unruly curls had gone uncut for almost four years. “I’m not sure. It happens sometimes when I’m waking up.” He paused, and Jon was preparing to press him more when he added, “Meera usually does what you did. Thank you.”

“Good.” At the mention of the mysterious sister they were chasing, Jon cleared his throat and began gathering their few things. “I’m assuming she doesn’t do it as hard.”

Jojen shrugged as he struggled to get himself upright. “You’d be surprised.” 

Jon had the sneaking suspicion that Jojen still wasn’t telling him everything about those strange episodes, given that the boy’s voice seemed even flatter than it was last night. Since they had plenty of time to make up without prying into the boy’s personal business, he let it go, and they readied themselves for the day’s travel as quickly and efficiently as they could. Or rather, Jon and Hodor did. Jojen seemed to have regressed on all the recovery he’d made in the last few hours, sweating and moving like every step was a pain for him again. 

Jon didn’t even bother trying to convince the crannogman to go back to Castle Black this time. He couldn’t escort him there even if the boy agreed to it, and Jon couldn’t abandon him to the wilds of the North. Like it or not, they were stuck together. 

After they’d finished packing up, they set off at the quickest pace he was sure Jojen could sustain. He wished he could invite the boy to hitch a ride on Ghost, who was half again Summer’s size and could easily bear the skinny crannog, but sent his direwolf off on the same mission he’d followed yesterday. Jojen’s unblinking eyes followed the wolf into the woods as his brother’s sniffed out the path ahead of them. 

“I should warn you about something.”

Jon didn’t tear his eyes away from Summer’s tail waving ahead of them, though his hand drifted towards Longclaw’s hilt. “And what might that be?” 

“Sometimes after I have one of those  _ things _ , something happens. I don’t know what, exactly. Meera and Bran say I start shaking and drooling, and that my eyes roll back.”

Jon didn’t know quite how to react to that news. He was grateful Jojen had warned him in case the event did occur, obviously, though the possibility of yet another delay on their chase didn’t exactly thrill him. “Well.. thank you for warning me,” He acknowledged. 

“I just wanted to let you know.” 

They trudged on, sometimes in silence, sometimes filling it with idle chatter. Jon attempted to ask him questions about their journey beyond the Wall, but Jojen kept refusing to answer. The continued rejections should have frustrated him, and in some ways they did, but in others Jon was content to leave things unanswered. He could imagine that Bran answering his questions would feel far more genuine than Jojen doing the same thing, and wanted to hear it from him.

He grew a bit irritated with Jojen’s heavy breathing after a while, and when he spotted a branch lying in their path that seemed about his height, picked it up and passed it to the boy. “Here. Use this,” He ordered gruffly. 

Jojen obeyed and leaned on the new staff. “Thank you.”

“And take this.” He pulled a knife he had meant to give the boy last night from his bag. Jojen barely glanced at it before shaking his head.

“Keep that. Or give it to Hodor. Weapons are wasted on me, Meera was always better with them.”

Jon withdrew the gift. Though he wished the boy would take something he could defend himself with, he could understand what he meant. The newest mention of the boy’s sister captured his attention, though, and influenced Jon’s mental image of her towards taking Arya’s shape a little bit. Jojen certainly seemed to admire her, and Jon saw his relationship with his younger sister reflected in theirs. His heart softened a bit.

“What does Meera usually do during those spells of yours?”   


He wouldn’t have blamed the crannogman for hesitating this time, no matter how infuriating the odd habit was. Personally, he had always taken a bit of pride in his ability to be self-sufficient and not have to rely on anyone else. It had been a skill he’d needed as Winterfell’s bastard, as Lord Snow, and as the traitorous crow. But Jojen did not pause before answering his question this time. “She carries a strip of leather on her arm that she pushes between my teeth to be sure I don’t bite my tongue. I doubt you have any possession like that, nor would I ask you to perform a task only my sister and father are comfortable with doing. Don’t worry, Jon Snow. It will end as soon as it has begun, and I will come out the other side just fine, if a bit worse for wear.”

He shook his head as he listened, surprised at the boy’s sudden talkativeness. That had been the most sentences he had heard from him since they had meant, and they all referred to his flaws, and how his sister looked after him. 

_ Never forget what you are.  _ The long-forgotten words of the Imp, Tyrion Lannister, chose that moment to echo through his mind.  _ The rest of the world will not. Wear it like armor, and it can never be used to hurt you.  _

Though Jojen Reed wore no armor, Jon had to admit that he bore his weaknesses like no man he had ever known. 

“I should like to meet your sister,” He decided on replying after a while.

“You will.”

Jon’s lips twitched bitterly at the confidence in his tone. Hodor hummed his name happily in agreement. “Hodor, hodor.”

“What is she like?”

He wondered for a moment if he’d gotten too personal, too caught up in comparing a girl he had never met to fierce little Arya, before Jojen responded. “She’s my sister,” He said plainly at first. “She’s strong, and a hunter at heart. Trust me, I can think of no one better to protect Bran if that is what you’re worried about.”

Of course, Jon was worried about Bran, but that wasn’t what he had in mind when he’d asked the question. It did remind him of something else Jojen had said, and brought a much heavier query with it.

“And what’s Bran like, these days?”

Last Jon had seen him, he’d been a gentle, kind-hearted child; yet was still foolhardy enough to climb the walls of Winterfell’s towers. He couldn’t imagine that nothing had changed, what with everything his younger brother had been through. He certainly had. It hurt to admit it, but this strange boy he had never met before last night probably knew his brother better than he did.

It was an uncomfortable thought. 

“He’s… he’s Bran,” The crannogman panted as he leaned heavily on his new walking stick. This one was much more suited to his height than the one they’d burned last night, but he still acted as though it was too heavy to lift. “There is no other way to describe him.”

Jon couldn’t help but be slightly crestfallen at the lack of an answer. He nodded anyways and attempted to hide his disappointment. “Right.”

“Hodor.”

At least one there was one person Jon knew hadn’t changed. He turned to his old stablehand, a small smile flitting across his face, but Hodor’s most recent utterance of his name seemed a bit uneasy. “Are you alright, Hodor?”

Hodor nodded and spoke a few more times before quieting. “Hodor, hodor, hodor.”

“Here.” Jon passed him the knife Jojen had refused earlier. The man was initially reluctant to accept it, but within minutes seemed to change his mind, turning it over in his hands and muttering. Out of the corner of his eye, Jon saw the crannogman watching the exchange, wearing the closest thing to a smile of his own the bastard had seen from him yet.

The sun climbed high in the sky as they continued their path. To Jon’s relief, Jojen was able to point them in the direction of a stream they passed so they were able to refill their waterskins. Summer seemed especially grateful, and lapped at the water contentedly before nosing at his own paw. Jon was contemplating the night previous, and the strange dreams that he’d had, when he heard a strangled gasp from his companion. In an instant, he was on his feet and drawing his sword.

Just as quickly, the blade fell from his hand and into the snow.

“‘s happening,” The young man slurred as his eyes rolled into his head and the sweat on his forehead glistened anew. He too dropped to the ground, and Jon rushed to his side.

Like Jojen had warned him he would, he began to shake and seize in place. Jon swallowed down his fear, unsure of what else there was he could do, and held down his shoulders so that he didn’t hurt himself. The crannogman had said his sister carried a strip of leather to push between his teeth, but Jon had nothing of the sort besides his belt. So he just waited, and thanked the gods that Jojen had had the foresight to warn him about the possibility that this could happen. 

“It’s alright, Jojen,” He soothed. He wasn’t sure if the boy could hear him, but saying something felt far better than remaining silent. “It’ll be over soon.”

That was a bit of a lie, as it turned out. The episode lasted much longer than Jon had anticipated, but in retrospect probably lasted only a bit longer than five minutes. Hodor watched mutely, and Summer let out a soft whine, but they didn’t seem shocked by this new development. Since Jojen had said Bran had witnessed these spells, he figured Hodor and Summer had, too. When Jojen’s shaking slowed, Jon finally released the boy and stood. Shortly afterwards, his eyes returned to normal.

“Are you alright?” Jon murmured. He watched as the crannogman wiped away the foam that had gathered on his lips with a trembling hand. The number of times he’d asked that question in the last day was far too high for his liking. 

The boy opened and closed his mouth, testing his jaw. Jon was relieved to know that even without the leather he hadn’t bitten his tongue off. “I’m fine. It happens quite often, as I told you.”

He settled his gaze on his hands and didn’t dare look up at Jon. His brow scrunched up, like Arya’s used to do when she was trying to solve a problem. Between that and his earlier comparison of his sister to Jojen’s, Jon was beginning to think his younger sister would have done well in the Neck. 

“Do you think you’re able to travel?”

Jojen didn’t answer. All of Jon’s frustration with his little habits returned full force and replaced his worry. “Jojen,” He said, more forcefully than before. “Are you alright to keep going?” If he wasn’t, Jon or Hodor would have to carry him. Or he’d have to call Ghost back to give the boy a ride. Jon wasn’t fond of any of those options. 

_ “Jojen,”  _ He called. He was a bit perturbed by his blank stare. “Hey. You sure you’re alright?”

The crannogman’s brilliant green eyes suddenly snapped up and searched Jon’s more dull ones. “Can I ask you a question?”   
  
His neutral tone took Jon aback. It was as though the boy hadn’t been writhing and seizing right in front of him no more than two minutes ago. “Sure…?” 

The boy paused again, but this wasn’t like the usual lulls that Jon had come to accept being a normal part of Jojen Reed’s conversation. It was as though he was battling some internal struggle, like he didn’t want to ask whatever had come to mind.

“Have you ever had any wolf dreams, Jon Snow?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A breather chapter, but by no means filler. ;-)
> 
> Please welcome the new title of this fic! The old title of 'To Chain A Wolf' was fine, but really only applied to Bran's story (maybe Jon's if you squint at the end.) Confession: I didn't really come up with a title until I posted this on here and came up with that one in about a minute. In my Google Docs, this fic is still labeled BM1-CKL. 'The Burdens We Bear' is more of a common theme that will be present in all four main characters' arcs. 
> 
> Also, I was wondering if anyone wanted to collaborate on creating a Bran collection for GOT/ASOIAF fics, where he is a central character. It's verrrry frustrating to find Bran fics on here, whether they're ship fics or not, as most works under his tag mostly have him as a very minor character. Considering he is literally a main character of the series, this is v sad. If you have any recommendations for fics that should be added, or want to be added as a co-creator, let me know!
> 
> Until next time!


	6. Meera II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meera answers a question. Bran finally gets to take a nap.

_His urn was painted with patterns of crossed frog spears, above a field of, of course, reeds and lizard-lions. Painfully literal._

_Meera remained in front of the pyre long after Ed's ashes had been removed from it. Those who had done the duty had avoided her eyes and given her muttered apologies for her family’s loss before slipping away, presumably to deliver the urn to her father. Or perhaps they’d take it directly to the Hall of the Dead. Either way, they seemed to expect Meera to follow, and she dully told them that she would stay for a little while longer. She knew each of them by name, as it was hard not to know everyone in this part of the world, and they knew her. So they knew how she was hurting, and left her._

_After a long while, she heard on the wind her mother’s mourning song. It was an old one. She hadn’t heard it in a long time, not since her uncle’s funeral when she was small. Jyana’s voice had always been richer than honey and warmer than fire, and Meera had enjoyed hearing her sing her entire life. Now, as she heard the quaver in her tone, she wished nothing more than for her to stop. Of course, she didn’t. It was a crannog custom to sing after funerals._

_More voices rose after the first couple lines. She was supposed to join in too, though she couldn’t bring herself to at first. As was only appropriate, the rhythm of the music was slow and solemn. Meera knew as the night wore on it would be replaced by something more wild and free, something celebratory of the life that had passed. Ed would have liked it better, but what was there to celebrate about a life passing so soon?_

_She tipped her head back to stare up at the dancing smoke, searching for an answer. The remnants of her brother refused to spell one out for her._

_Her father appeared at her shoulder after the third verse, of which there were nine. Most crannog songs were usually five or less, but this one had been added to over the years to include words and phrases the younger Reeds couldn’t quite understand the meaning of yet. Or at least, Meera couldn’t understand. Jojen had always been better with those things. They both stayed quiet through the fourth and fifth, and then he spoke._

_“Jojen is awake.”_

_It was the first good news Meera had heard in a while. Much as she wanted to, she couldn’t quite summon a smile. Instead, her gaze dropped from the sky to her toes. “Does he know?”_

_It wasn’t quite the question she wanted to ask, but it was close, and Howland knew that._

_“He does now.”_

_The answer wasn’t the one that Meera had asked the sky for, but it was a relief, if one could say that. She crumpled to the ground, and a strangled gasp tore its way out of her as her father knelt beside her and held her close to his chest._

_“I miss him,” She declared in a high-pitched, childlike wail, and beat her fist into the marsh-grass. I should have been there, she had wanted to say instead, I should have been with them. However, the last thing she wanted was for her father to feel the need to hollowly deny the truth that she already knew and could never forget._

_“I know you do. I know the feeling, little one.” She buried her face in his arms and never wanted to come out. He held her for a moment longer, and then took her shoulders in his hands. “Look at me.”_

_Meera obeyed, and her father wiped a stray tear from her chin. “My daughter,” He said kindly. “I know your heart as well as I know my own. I know the thoughts that run through your mind, but I am not so foolish to tell you to ignore them.”_

_She nodded slowly and swallowed a lump in her constricting throat._

_“Instead, I will tell you to not let them drown you.” They both flinched at the choice of words. Howland continued after a moment’s pause with great difficulty. “Jojen will need you, child, in a way Ed never would have. I don’t plan on leaving you anytime soon, so I will not have you worry yourself over the lordship of Greywater just yet, but…” He trailed off for good this time, and she helped him._

_“Jojen attracts trouble like a flame does a moth?” Her voice was stronger than she’d imagined it being._

_He cracked a smile and fondly ruffled a handful of her curls. “You both do.”_

_She took a deep breath as he pulled her to her feet. Both of their shins were covered in mud and grass, though they didn’t bother to wipe the muck off_ — _nothing stayed clean in the Neck for long_ _. Her father slung an arm across her shoulder, drawing her to his side, and together, the two crannogmen lifted their heads as the ninth verse began._

_“I believe in you, my girl,” He murmured as they listened. “You are the strongest of us. You always were.”_

_Meera couldn’t help but wonder if that trust was misplaced._

_“Now come.” He joined the song. She ran her tongue over her cracked lips and listened for a moment longer before raising her own trembling voice for the last chorus._

*

They rode through the rest of the day, as hard as their captor dared. Meera was sure he was more afraid of tiring the horses than he was of dropping Bran. Several times she saw her friend slip and barely catch himself from falling in his precarious position. She’d learned the lesson of not underestimating Brandon Stark’s sheer force of will several times on this journey, and watching him keep himself upright was no exception. 

He seemed to be doing better, Meera thought to herself. No one could recover from the news he had received in a single day, though she supposed their situation forced him to keep his wits about him. She wouldn’t have blamed him for getting lost if he couldn’t. 

“Come on, little one,” Their captor chided as they strode along. “I know your lord hasn’t cut out your tongue, so there is no use in pretending you don’t have one.”

Meera was quite bored too, but she had no desire to talk to _him._ It wasn’t even out of sheer stubbornness anymore— the man had broken Bran’s heart, and had derived a great deal of pleasure from doing it. She couldn’t even fathom being able to find gratification from the look on his face. Bran had been through enough in these last few years, between the execution of his father, the capture and sack of his own home, and separating from the last of his family immediately after watching his childhood tutor bleed his life away. Not to mention losing the use of his legs. She always tried her best to make him smile or laugh, to forget his sorrows for a second, yet she couldn’t even do that for him now.

She fixed her glare on her hands, bound to the front of her saddle. 

In the last few years of taking care of their little group, Meera had done and seen things she never thought possible, even climbed the Wall, but she had yet to kill a man. Of course, she’d been prepared, and had even offered to back at Winterfell in order to protect Bran and Rickon from the man called Reek. There were few things that she wouldn’t have done for them, Hodor, or Jojen. It just so happened that killing a man hadn’t been needed of her yet.

She didn’t imagine it to be a pleasant thing, nor had she been looking forward to it, even at the keep when she saw it as their only course of action. But now, after seeing how this stranger had taken joy in breaking Bran’s spirit, she understood the _desire_ to kill a little bit more. 

“Must you both be so extraordinarily dull?” The man sighed, removing a hand from the reins to clasp Bran’s shoulder. Her friend flinched away from his touch, and in doing so nearly lost his balance again. Meera gritted her teeth. Don’t touch him, she wanted to demand, haven’t you already done enough? 

“Fine.” He glanced up at the sky, and then down at his horse, who had begun to flag over the last hour. The white skin of his scar flashed, as thin and curvy as a crescent moon. Meera hoped the man who had inflicted it was living his days out peacefully somewhere, far away from the madness the rest of the world had devolved into. “We’ll stop for a few hours so the horses can rest and have a little chat as we wait.”

Her eyelids, which had been drooping as a result of no sleep, snapped open at that. The steady drum of her heartbeat thudded once, twice, in her ears before she calmed herself down. 

Despite her sudden desire to continue on and avoid ‘a little chat’, their captor slowed the horses to a halt. 

He helped her dismount and allowed his hand to linger on her waist. Though she barely felt the pressure over her layers of fur, she was painfully aware of its presence. She pushed thoughts of roaming hands and hot, heavy breaths out of her mind, and succeeded; but the memory of Karl’s leering face over hers formed a deep pit of dread in her stomach that didn't follow them out. 

Once his hand was gone, she staggered determinedly over to Bran. Her legs felt like jelly after riding for so long, since it had been years since she’d done so, but she ignored it and reached up to help Bran down. The man chuckled at her reaction and watched them wordlessly struggle.

He secured Meera to a tree trunk, same as last night, but chose to leave Bran lying in the snow next to the horses. The pit turned into a swirling mass.

He knelt in front of her as Bran struggled to reach them. “I’m done playing games, little one,” He hissed. “I’ll give you one last chance to tell me what I wish to know.”

The thrum of Meera’s heart rose to a roar.

“Who are you?”

Not so long ago, Bran had taken a slap from Karl for refusing to answer that very same question, and had only broken when the deserters threatened to slit Meera’s throat. Since this man wouldn’t do the same in reverse, as Bran was the more valuable captive, Meera had no qualms with refusing to answer as well. Not when the answer could endanger her parents. 

She had already failed Jojen, and Ed before him. She would not fail them as well. Her chin was raised in defiance.

“Stop!” Her friend yelled from where he was trying to pull himself forward in the snow. “ _Stop!”_

Meera inhaled sharply at the desperation in Bran’s voice. Though she knew he only wanted the best for her, it reminded her of a much worse position she’d been in the day before, when he’d screamed those very same words. The sense heightened, and pit in her stomach sank deeper, when the man drew his dagger and reached for the front of her furs with a nasty smirk. Meera’s breathing grew rapid and shallow. 

_“She’s Meera Reed!”_

The man’s movement stopped. Relief flashed through Meera’s mind, with anger hot on its heels. 

How dare you, Brandon Stark?

“She’s Meera Reed of the crannogmen,” Bran panted as he continued to heave himself closer. His desperate eyes met Meera’s, pleading for her to understand. Her own gaze was flint.

How dare you make the decision to possibly put my family in danger?

“Hm.” The man drew away from Meera, and she hated her muscles for relaxing. 

Bran pushed himself up so he could look into the man’s face. “You knew that already, didn’t you?” He demanded calmly. For once, he looked every bit the prince he was likely never to become. Her fury turned to confusion as quickly as it had arrived. “You know who she is.”

Meera carefully observed their captor’s reaction. For one short moment, he looked frustrated, before smiling slightly. “And what makes you think that, little lord?”

“The only people who know I’m alive know who I travel with, too.”

Was that true? Meera wondered, before counting them off in her head. Osha, Rickon, and Samwell Tarly, plus his wildling friend were the only ones she was certain were left. Theon Greyjoy had known, and the servant Reek, who Jojen had seen skinning the false Bran and Rickon alive in his vision, but they had most likely perished in the sack of Winterfell. All of them would have known Bran’s companions regardless. 

The man nodded, vaguely impressed. A bit put out, maybe, but impressed. “Very good.”

Bran was right. The last of her anger melted away and was replaced by gratitude for her prince and disgust for their captor. “Then why?” She asked huskily. Why torment me like this?

The man ignored her and stepped closer to Bran, who was now halfway between Meera’s tree and the horses. “Perhaps then, you’ve figured out what else I want.” 

Bran’s gaze slid to Meera as he paled and pulled himself another foot closer to her. 

“Where is your little brother, Brandon?”

Meera wondered if he’d seen that coming, too, before deciding he couldn’t have. He wouldn’t look so uneasy if that was the case. “I don’t know.” 

The man tutted and turned back to Meera. “I thought you were smart.” His hand flashed out, and Meera’s lip started bleeding again. She wasn’t even aware that he’d hit her until she heard her neck crack to the side. While that worried her, she was pleased to realize that it also meant she hadn’t cried out.

 _“I don’t know!_ ” Bran yelped. “We split up!”

Except he did know. It didn’t happen often, but Meera could always tell when Bran was lying; he always settled his eyes on the ground first like he did now. She wondered if that was what he had meant with that solemn look earlier, if he had somehow warged into Rickon’s direwolf from hundreds of miles away or had a vision like Jojen did sometimes, and he had seen where Rickon had gone. Neither seemed likely, though she supposed it didn’t matter much. 

“If you did know, would you tell me?” 

Bran’s mouth stuttered open and closed a half-dozen times. Meera saw the anguish on his face, and didn’t think. All she knew was her duty to protect Bran. And that extended to protecting him from a decision he shouldn’t have to make.

“He wouldn’t,” She answered, meeting Bran’s eyes with a firmness that dared him to disagree with her. You wouldn’t, because I wouldn’t let you. As much as Bran was her prince, _and always would be, whether his brother was King in the North or not,_ he had to understand that. 

“Would you?” The man knelt in front of her again. The question gave Meera pause. The words, ‘what part of loyalty do you not understand?’ danced on the tip of her tongue, but she held them back, knowing they wouldn’t do her any good, if not rain down hell on her. Instead, she gazed at him with the same ferocity she had fixed Bran with.

“No.” 

Rickon was her lord, too. She would not betray him.

The knife appeared in the stranger’s hand again. He rested it on the tip of Meera’s collar, peeking up from under her layers of furs. A thread came loose and drifted across her chest— she would have to mend it if they ever made their way to safety again. Meera wasn’t sure if, given the choice, she would have preferred the blade cutting up to her neck, or down to her tunic, like Karl had wanted to.

Bran pushed himself up on his arms behind the stranger, his jaw clenching and face ashen with fear as he strained to reach her. He was now moving faster than she had ever seen him, but it still wasn’t fast enough. Even if he got there in time, there was little chance he could help. _“Meera,”_ His lips formed her name, but she did not hear him. 

She wanted to close her eyes, to be surprised with whether the blade traveled down or up, but she could not look away from him and his despair. His guilt. 

_She couldn’t betray him, either. Not like this, not_ now.

“Wait.” 

Bran kept moving, and she heard him choke out her name again. Meera wasn’t sure if he’d caught her words.

Bran has his third eye, Jojen has his dreams, Hodor his strength. You are a crannog, girl, act like it. Surprise is your net, and trickery is your spear. 

“Rickon…” She began slowly. Bran and the stranger both went still, her friend’s mouth opened slightly. He was only a couple feet away from them now, so close if she stretched her toes she could brush his hand with her boot. “I…”

Meera hesitated, until her tormentor lifted her chin with the dagger and studied her eyes. “Speak.” 

“I told the wildling woman to take him to Greywater Watch.” She lowered her voice so Bran could not hear. “It’s the safest place in the North, and my father would not betray him. They may not have gone there at all, but that is what I know.” 

The knife, now red from the blood trickling from her lips, was pulled away. The stranger stepped back and almost trod over Bran, whose hands were buried deep into the snow and holding on tight to a stone like a lifeline. “Thank you, little one,” He said in a matter of fact way. “I had a feeling you might be helpful.”

He lazily patted her head, like a hound who had earned a reward after a hard day’s hunt, and went to tend to the horses. 

Bran wordlessly pulled himself the last few feet to her side and collapsed against the tree once he’d made it. “Meera,” he hoarsely said her name a third time. Beads of perspiration glistened on his forehead and stuck several strands of his long dark hair to his face. Meera felt the stupid urge to reach out and push them away.

“I lied,” She murmured, as soon as she was sure that their captor was out of earshot, and told him everything.

Bran let out a long, white breath that faded into the cold air. “I know.”

“You knew?” She looked at him out of the corner of her eye. 

He shrugged in response. “Not about Greywater Watch, but I knew you lied.” 

“Oh.” She lowered her chin to her chest and watched a drip of blood splash onto her breeches.

“Thank you.” 

Meera couldn’t react. Their captor could still see them, and any emotion that seemed wrong to him might tip him off to her lie. Their conversation had to appear to be different than it actually was, even though she wanted nothing more than to embrace her prince and apologize for making him think for even a second that she would betray his family. 

Not responding became so much harder when she heard Bran sniff. Startled, she turned her head slightly to check if he was crying. Her heart lurched when she saw that a single tear had indeed crept out of the corner of his right eye, and as she watched, he impatiently wiped it away. “Sorry,” He muttered, clearly embarrassed that it had fallen at all. “I just…” He trailed off for a moment, then his voice grew stronger. “Thank you,” He repeated.

The churning in her stomach had faded a while ago, replaced now by a lump in her throat. Her lie wouldn’t protect her forever, and they both knew it. She had only delayed the inevitable. Meera just prayed that she hadn’t dragged the rest of her family into the situation any more than she already had by being here. She didn’t think she had, though it went without saying that she would reveal her lie to spare them if she had to. 

“I can’t lose you, too.” 

Bran’s voice was barely above a whisper. There was a quaver in his tone that made Meera’s breath catch.

She didn’t respond. How could she? Bran was her prince, her liege lord, and she one of his bannermen. Even back in a normal world, people like her were made for Brandon Stark to lose. Nevermind in their world, which had been whittled down to four people and a mission north of the Wall. A mission that Jojen had warned them he, Meera, and Hodor might not return from. 

Bran had to make it to the three-eyed crow, even if no one else did. Or rather, even if Meera didn’t. They all knew that, and they had gone north anyway. She didn’t expect Bran to be able to lose a close friend so soon after receiving his family’s news, especially not right in front of his eyes. It was why she’d hung up her pride and condemned herself to worse punishment when her lie was discovered. Yet, the way he had said it gave it finality that she _definitely_ hadn’t anticipated. 

What could she say?

What could she feel?

“We can’t lose you either,” Meera replied. “If we lose you, we lose everything.”

She had used those same words the other night, to warn Bran away from warging into Summer for hours on end. They sounded… practical, now, compared to Bran’s more emotional declaration. The uses of _we_ and _I_ definitely set them apart as definitively as the Wall did the Northmen and the wildlings, and his silence after she spoke confirmed it. Whether he was mulling over his own words or hers, Meera wasn’t sure. 

He was quiet for so long that when Meera turned her head completely to check on him, she found him with his eyes closed and his head leant back against the tree trunk. His brows were scrunched into a scowl, even in sleep, and his chest rose and fell with soft snores. He looked more peaceful than he had in days, which was to say, only slightly less troubled than usual. 

Meera knew he probably hadn’t meant to fall asleep. He wouldn’t have if he had slept at all in the last day and a half. Her own jaws widened into a yawn at the realization and her body finally sagged as the last of the adrenaline left her. She pressed her lips against his forehead, a wordless apology that she wouldn’t mind their captor seeing, and winced at the red mark she left behind. All it did was remind her that her lip was still bleeding a bit. She raised her cold and trembling hands and swiped the blood away as gently as she could with her thumb, which lingered a moment longer than necessary on his smooth skin. 

His touch was warm. Meera jerked her hands away, unnerved, and lowered them to her lap. 

She turned away, pressed her back against Bran’s side to protect them both from the cold, and joined him in sleep, if only for a few hours. 

*

Meera was a light sleeper, and proud of it. It was one of her hunter’s instincts. Their captor didn’t even have to shake her awake, just step a bit heavily in their direction before she was already up and reaching for a weapon she didn’t have. He just snorted at the look on her face and silently went to the horses, so she took the time to lean over to Bran and shake him awake as well.

Her prince groaned as he stirred back to the world of the living. “Are we leaving already?”

His weariness had dropped his voice an octave or two. Meera bit back a smile. “I’m afraid so.”

“How much further to the Wall?” 

She wondered briefly if they were sure that was where they were being taken. The only other option would be the Bay of Seals, which was much further away, but had a clear exit plan. She said this to Bran, though mentioned nothing about how the idea of travelling that far off their road to the cave of the three-eyed crow disturbed her.

“He must have known we were here from Samwell Tarly,” Bran pointed out vaguely as his mouth opened in a wide yawn. “Who could also have told him how we came through the Nightfort. It won’t open for him, though.”

She nodded in agreement and began calculating in her head. 

Their group had been north of the Wall for a few weeks, though their progress was slow due to Bran’s inability to walk and Jojen’s growing weakness. Not to mention that they’d had no clear direction to travel in for the first few days, until they’d found the weirwood tree and Bran had the vision of their destination. The journey back with horses would obviously be quicker, especially if the stranger continued to push them, but Meera couldn’t be sure exactly how long it would take. 

She shrugged. “At this pace? I wouldn’t guess any more than a week, if that.”

Bran nodded and studied his lap. After the awkwardness of earlier, all she wanted to do was wipe that worried look from his face like she was so used to doing, consequences of their captor seeing be damned. Maybe he didn’t even remember what he’d said in the middle of his fatigue. 

So Meera fixed her face with a smile and nudged him. “Hey,” She said softly.

He faced her, brown eyes as wide and doe-like as ever. 

“At least this time we can take the kingsroad.” 

They were both silent for a moment before Bran laughed. Hearing his breathy chuckle lifted Meera’s own spirits, and brought her back to when everything had been simple. When Bran was still dead to the world, Jojen was healthy, and the weather was as warm as this part of the world ever got. 

“I know I complained quite often about not taking it…”

“Quite loudly, too.”

Bran rolled his eyes at her impertinence, and she turned her head away from him to keep up their pretense for their captor’s sake. She only hoped the shadows of the nightfall fast approaching them hid her grin. “I know I complained quite often about not taking it, but I’m glad we didn’t.”

“And why is that?” She fought the desire to add ‘ _my prince’_ onto the end of the question like she used to.

“Well, Jojen was obviously right about the dangers of people knowing I was alive, for one,” He remarked, lifting his bound hands a few inches before lowering them just as quickly. His arms must have been sore. “But for another, we would have missed quite a lot.”

Meera nodded ruefully. “Queenscrown.”

“That story you told me. The one about the Knight of the Laughing Tree.”

“And the one you told me at the Nightfort, about the Rat Cook.” Meera paused, wishing they could trade stories again. It would be her turn to tell one now, since the Nightfort was the last time they’d done it and Jojen was almost as poor a storyteller as he was a hunter. 

“You almost killed Samwell Tarly there, do you remember?”

“I didn’t _nearly kill him_ , he got himself all tangled in my net and nearly ripped it in half.”

And just like that, everything was almost normal again.

Almost.

A twig cracked from behind them. In her haze of exhaustion, Meera thought it belonged to their captor, but he was across the way, untying their horses and readying them for the next push to their destination. Between two trees across from them, she caught a flash of red eyes, which blinked and vanished into the dark. 

She exchanged an apprehensive glance with Bran. Was this the rescue they were waiting for? 

That hope was dashed as a hand snaked around the tree trunk and over her mouth. 


	7. Bran III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Doctor Doom and Magneto team up. Bran doesn't know how to be a human (but is anyone really surprised?)

_He didn’t remember the stag’s horn piercing and tearing his dam’s throat, or even the brief period of solitude that followed. His eyes hadn’t even been open at the time, but he didn’t need the gift of sight to know the warm bodies of his siblings, his pack, abandoned right alongside him. Even when they were carried off to a home that would only become familiar later, he could feel them by his side, just as he always did, even the days when he went exploring on his own._

_He was once prince of the green. Summer. Now, a winter wanderer._

_Lost, found, and lost again._

Bran didn’t know why he had thought it was fine to bring his guard down.

He was no stranger to the realization that he’d lived in blissful ignorance for the first twelve years of his life. That fact had made itself clear to him over and over since he’d fallen from the tower, again and again until he felt like the world was just proving it to him for the sake of it. Until he felt ready to scream that _yes,_ he _understood_ . And yet, he’d allowed himself to feel safe _—_ _if only for a moment_ _—_ with Meera. Allowed himself to laugh for just one second; one stolen moment at peace with her. 

All too suddenly, there was a hand clamped over Meera’s mouth from around the tree they were bound to, reminding Bran that he was never out of danger, whether they were north or south of the Wall.

“Not a word, _Stark,_ ” The newcomer sneered in a rough, coarse tone that Bran vaguely recognized as familiar. Unfortunately for him, the order to remain undetected was rendered pointless in seconds, as the next sound to split the air was a wordless cry of pain. A small smile crossed Bran’s lips upon realizing that Meera had bitten the hand muffling her. 

Their captor wheeled around from his spot next to the horses and drew the same knife he’d pulled on Meera in one fluid motion. “Step away from them and I might let you live.”

“How generous of you,” The newcomer spat, and didn’t move. Bran craned his neck in an attempt to catch a glimpse of his face, but the trunk of the tree was doing a good job of obscuring his vision. 

The first of the pair advanced with narrowed eyes. “I’d say so.”

Tension rested between the two of them, thick and palpable, until the newcomer let out a huff of irritation and put some distance between himself and Meera. Bran’s senses flooded with relief, but in no way were his concerns for the new position they found themselves in lessened. The newcomer obviously wasn’t there to help or free them, he was sure of that much. _So why was he here? And where did Bran know him from?_

Their original captor remained silent for a moment longer before flicking his hand dismissively. “Leave us. If you know what’s good for you, you will not tell anyone what you saw. I won't hesitate to hang your skin from Winterfell’s walls as a banner.”

Bran shivered at the idea of his home being treated in such a way. Yet somehow, the specificity of the threat bothered him, tugging somewhere deep within his memory that he couldn’t quite discern the location of. Beside him, Meera reached for his hand to keep him from lashing out, like she had the night before. Though it wasn’t necessary this time, Bran threaded their fingers together as he thought. His slight shivering, so common this far north that he hadn’t even noticed it had started, subsided. 

The newcomer didn’t obey and looked at their captor with new interest. “You’re takin’ him back there, then?”

“None of your business.” The knife extended forward, and the second man raised his hands into the air.

“Easy there, mate.” He stepped into the light, and Bran noticed he was wearing the black of the Night’s Watch too. He still wasn’t reassured; if anything, the fact made his heart sink straight down to his unfeeling toes. “We’re on the same side ‘ere."

Their captor remained unimpressed. “Are we?”

The man ventured far enough into the clearing for his solid frame to be outlined in the firelight. “Last I looked, yeah. Wrong side of the Wall is the same side for two men who ain’t wildlings or of the Night’s Watch.”

 _Not Night’s Watch. A deserter, maybe?_ Bran inhaled sharply. _One of_ those _deserters?_ Meera’s fingers stiffened in Bran’s grip, obviously having come to the same verdict. He squeezed her hand back in what he hoped was a fine attempt at being comforting.

“Be thankful that I’m leaving you with your life, and…” Clearly distracted, the original kidnapper cut himself off and spun on his heel. He lunged in the direction of the woods opposite Bran and Meera, weapon poised to attack in a stance that reminded the young Stark vaguely of Theon Greyjoy. He wondered for a moment if their captor was from the Iron Islands as well, before he started advancing on the newcomer with quiet, but indisputable, rage. “Who did you bring with you?”

The deserter was caught off guard. “No one.”

“I wouldn’t lie if I were you.” 

The night was so quiet Bran could hear the soft singing of the man’s blade as it was hastily drawn to defend himself, then its ring as it met their captor’s dagger between them. Then, bravado disguising uncertainty. That also reminded Bran of Theon Greyjoy _—_ and, perhaps more accurately, himself. “And I wouldn’t fight me if I were you.”

Even if Bran had listened as hard as he could, he doubted he could have heard the direwolf on the most soundless of nights. 

A white blur sprang from the woods while the two combatants were focused on each other and launched itself at them. Faster than his eyes could follow, it knocked them both to the ground, one massive paw holding each of them down.

“Is that—” Meera whispered. 

Bran’s heart thudded inside of his chest, not daring to hope. “ _Ghost.”_

Jon. 

The albino direwolf loomed over the pair, lips drawn back in a silent snarl. From what Bran could tell, neither man was brave or foolish enough to try to wriggle free. He knew the effect that the Starks’ companions had on people all too well, and by now, so did Meera, who immediately started tugging on the bindings around his wrists. 

The glint of steel flashing in the dying sun recaptured his attention.The man they had come to know and hate had overcome his shock first. He heaved a large swing at Ghost’s muzzle, who reared his head back, then sunk his teeth deep into the forearm holding the knife. The man let out an agonized groan as the weapon dropped into the snow, close to his ear. Some deep, private part of Bran that he would never tell Meera about was disappointed it hadn’t driven itself into his eye and ended their problems for good. 

Ghost finally let out an audible growl as he ripped at their captor’s arm, ripping the fur-lined sleeve with ease before tearing right down to the flesh. The groan sharpened into a tortured scream. 

“Bran, _come on,_ move!”

_Where was Jon?_

The last circle of rope encircling Bran’s hands fell loose. He immediately set to work freeing Meera’s ankles despite his sudden reservations, yet he couldn’t look away from the scene unfolding just a few feet away from them. As he watched, the newcomer picked up the pieces of his shattered courage and raised his sword with a trembling hand. 

Bran said the wolf’s name again, but this time in the form of a warning cry. “Ghost!”

Meera jerked up her head just in time to watch the stranger slice into his brother’s companion’s side. It was now Ghost’s turn to let out a whimper that tore Bran’s heart in two. 

Their captor wasted no time in ripping his arm free from the direwolf’s jaws. The motion sprayed drips of crimson across his own face, Ghost’s, and the already disturbed snow, and Bran watched in horror as the discarded dagger was picked up once more.

_“No!!”_

This time, Bran wasn’t even aware that the shriek had come from him until it had already torn its way out of his throat. Ghost’s pelt was already glistening with blood, and, in desperation, Bran tried to shift into his skin to force him to flee the fight, to go back to Jon who he was now positive wasn’t coming to join the fight. He would have already appeared if he was going to. 

Not too unlike the first time he’d tried sliding into another body that wasn’t Summer, he encountered a block. Though they did share a connection through the pack, in a way that he couldn’t possibly explain, the distance between him and Ghost could not be bridged. His brother’s wolf could have been in Dorne, Essos, Asshai or a few feet away, it wouldn’t have mattered. Yet, like a faint call across miles of frozen wasteland, Ghost heard the voice of his master’s brother.

The giant canine lifted his head and met Bran’s terrified gaze.

“Run,” The Broken Wolf pled. 

His captor rose to his feet, one hand clutching his knife, the other his arm. Bran knew had he not been caught off guard, Ghost could have made mincemeat of these two in minutes if he wished, which made ordering him away all the harder. 

He could not bear the death of another packmate on his shoulders, a possibility that seemed to loom closer every moment he lingered. 

“Run.”

He could smell the displeasure rolling off Summer’s brother. Just like his master, who practiced hiding emotion almost to the point of creating a new art form, he remained stoic. Fortunately (or perhaps not) for Bran, one penchant of Jon’s Ghost had not picked up was the habit of disregarding orders. The direwolf backed away from the pair, and after one slight glance in Bran’s direction, bounded into the woods as silently as he had arrived. 

Meera was the first to break the still moment that followed, though she barely tread its waters. Surreptitiously, she looped the cords that she had undone around Bran’s hands, hiding their escape attempt with a coolness he did not share with her. His stomach was already threatening to bring up what little he had eaten last night. 

To Bran's great relief, Meera’s movements were so miniscule they thankfully went unnoticed by the two men. It seemed their beginnings of an escape attempt hadn't been seen either. Between pounding heart beats, Bran noted that for the first time since they’d met their unpleasant captor he appeared distinctly rattled, clutching his bloody arm as he remained sat on the floor. The newcomer did not offer a hand up and merely stared after Ghost in disbelief they’d escaped the encounter with their lives. 

They were indeed lucky, after all. If the stranger was a deserter of the Night’s Watch he knew exactly how much that was true. 

He knelt and touched the trail of blood Ghost had left behind. “He’s wounded,” He pointed out unnecessarily. As though suddenly remembering the course of events leading up to the fight, he stiffened and whirled, pointing his the tip of his sword in the direction of the wounded man. If not for what had just happened, Bran could have laughed at the ridiculousness.

Their captor took his time in getting to his feet and swept his opponent with a glance up and down, a favor that the deserter returned. Each man’s gaze lingered on the blade that the other held in his hand.

Finally, after what seemed an eternity of waiting, their captor lowered his knife with a pained expression. “Jon Snow’s wolf, yeah?” The stranger remained still, his eyes flitting from Bran to Meera to the other man, who huffed a sigh. “I wouldn’t do that. I can still cut you down just as easily as before, as can Roose Bolton on the off chance you manage to get them back to Winterfell without me.”

Bran’s breath caught in his throat at that new piece of information. 

The stranger finally lowered his guard, albeit stiffly, and held out his arm. The other obliged him and clasped it before dropping quickly. Bran couldn’t tell if that was due to pain or reluctance to touch each other for longer than a moment.

“Rast.” 

Their captor hesitated. “Locke.”

The newcomer, or _Rast_ as Bran now knew, offered the closest thing to a smile that he had seen in days _—_ besides Meera’s, which was so effortlessly bright it was hard to compare to almost anyone’s anyway. “Two captives. It’s just as well, I suppose.”

Locke appeared none too pleased with this turn of events. “The cripple’s hardly a struggle to manage.”

“And the bitch?”

Bran jerked at the insult but was held firmly by Meera. He bit down on his tongue. “Hasn’t been a problem so far,” Locke replied in an even tone.

“No, I guess not. Not like there’s anywhere to run up here, is there?” Rast gestured to the vast wood surrounding them before transitioning into a more conversational tone for a more probing question. “So, what has _Lord_ Bolton offered you for him?”

“Enough.”

Rast crossed his arms in front of his wide chest. “Please. You think I give a shit about what castle or power he’s promised you? If the Warden of the North gives me pardon for leaving the Watch and enough gold to pay for a whore or two, it’ll be a fuckin’ glorious day.”

"And I’m supposed to believe that?” Locke scoffed.

“It’s more than I had at Castle Black. Or the Keep, for that matter.” Rast drove the point of his blade into the snow and stood before the fire. “Believe what you will.” 

Locke remained poised for a moment longer before also relaxing and turning to warm his hands by the flames. “And you offer me in return?”

“Assistance. Passage through the wall.” 

Next to Bran, Meera leaned forward, suddenly enraptured by this turn in conversation. They had been assuming all this time that Locke was taking them to the Nightfort, the only castle along the wall that had an unguarded, unsealed passage. They were travelling in the right direction, after all. “I know of a place,” Locke replied impassively, revealing nothing. 

“If you’re going where I think you are, you won’t find it so easy to get through.” Rast paused, then made his bid for peace. “Not without my help.”

The scarred man appeared to consider, and Rast swept on. “That wolf isn’t the only one, you know? His brother told all of us at the Keep that each of his siblings had one of ‘em. Ever wonder where his has gotten off to?” He inclined his head towards Bran. 

Locke’s eyes widened ever so slightly, and he turned to stare in Bran’s direction as well. The young Stark felt his face warming under his captor’s piercing gaze.

“We barely chased off one with the two of us. If they both come back next time, no one’s taking him back to the Boltons.”

“Yes, I can see that,” Locke shot back balefully as he ripped his eyes away from his captive. “Though you forget that it wasn’t us who chased him off.”

Rast let out a grunt in agreement, but said no more. Bran could see that he was winning the debate, a fact that didn’t exactly reassure him. If a successful escape attempt wasn’t impossible before, it certainly would be with Rast on board. 

Locke seemed to ponder a moment longer before turning the dagger over in his wounded hand and offering its handle to Rast. “Betray me…” 

He didn’t complete the threat. He didn’t need to. Rast reared back ever so slightly, which was all a man like Locke would ever need to see in order to be reassured. After a moment’s hesitation, the newcomer accepted the handle of the blade and turned back to the fire. “First watch is yours,” Their captor informed him before retreating to the other side and nursing his wounded arm.

Rast remained alone on their side. From where he and Meera were bound, Bran could see his shoulders relax ever so slightly before turning in their direction. Bran lowered his eyes, but by his side, his friend lifted her chin and met his gaze steadily until he looked away.

“Maybe he’ll be more inclined to help us with your leg.”

Bran glanced down in surprise, nearly having forgotten about the slice in his trousers and thigh. Meera’s hand was covering it now, trapping the heat within, but he knew it wasn’t enough even without feeling his leg. “It doesn’t matter,” He replied in an effort to remain flippant about the situation. 

Meera’s eyes flicked up to fix him with a glare far colder than any chill. “Don’t say that.” 

When her reprimand didn’t continue, Bran felt a twinge of guilt and nudged her hand away from the cut. The thin line of blood had long since scabbed over, almost black against his pale skin. The only color in it came from the tiny blood vessels that had flushed almost purple from the cold and blossomed outwards, disappearing past the tear.

His friend grimaced at the sight and renewed her efforts to rub some warmth into his leg. Again, Bran nearly told her not to, but feared her admonition. He’d gotten off lightly the first time anyway. He changed the topic instead, which was probably for the better in light of recent events. “Jojen must have released Ghost.” 

She said nothing and kept her focus on her work. 

“He and Summer—” Meera shot a meaningful glance at Rast, who was still within earshot, and Bran lowered his voice to a whisper. “He and Summer must be coming after us. No reason for Ghost to be here if Summer isn’t.”

“What about Jon?”

Bran shook his head. “I don’t know. He could have gone back to Castle Black, or…” _or following us,_ he wanted to say, but didn’t want to acknowledge it as a possibility. After Jon had failed to appear, speaking it aloud seemed like setting his hopes too high. 

“I don’t think he did,” Meera murmured. “He’s coming for you.”

The question came to Bran’s lips quicker than he could stop it. “How can you be sure?”

“It’s what I would do.”

“For Jojen?”

A pause. Meera was biting her lip, her eyes transfixed on her hands, Bran’s leg. “And for you.”

Although for all intents and purposes she had just equated him with her own brother, he found himself tongue-tied and unable to provide her with a response. It was a simple thing that she had said to him, a statement that some would argue she was bound to make as a vassal to House Stark, yet it made his heart beat faster in his chest. It hammered against his ribs, pulsating in his fingertips, forcing the blood to rush past his ears and swirl around his brain until he could barely talk at all. 

“Bran?” Meera questioned him. She looked sideways at him as though she’d said nothing out of the ordinary. He drummed his fingers against his opposite thigh in order to get some of the strange energy out of his body. 

“I’m sorry. I was just thinking.” It seemed an inadequate response, yet he’d waited far too long now to tell her that he’d come for her if she needed him, too. 

She nodded, satisfied that he was alright, and went back to her work as he sat still reeling. 

_I’d come for you, too._

But he hadn’t. And he couldn’t.

Meera Reed was the strongest person he’d ever known. Stronger than Osha the wildling, stronger than Robb, and certainly stronger than Bran. He would never go as far to say she would never need anything— she was _human_ after all, and all the better for it— but when she did, it wouldn’t be Bran that could help her. He was her burden to bear, not the other way around; no matter how much he wished to carry himself.

Besides, he hadn’t helped her when it counted. His throat tightened with doubt as he replayed the scene from just minutes before over in his mind.

Meera, urging him to move as Ghost ripped Locke’s arm apart, his hands on the ropes around her ankles. In the thick of it all, they’d stilled. 

_They’d stilled!_ Bran squeezed his eyes shut and turned his face away from Meera. 

He’d never had any control over Rast wounding Ghost, and Meera would have never had a chance of dragging him away before they were both subdued, but she could have easily made it away without him weighing her down, or if he’d allowed Ghost to linger just a moment longer. Bran had failed her twice, and not even because of his legs. 

There had always been a debt between Bran and the Reeds, just as there was one between Bran and Hodor, or Bran and Osha, or Bran and Luwin. Of those, Bran could now never repay at least one, and he didn’t ever plan on recreating that situation with anyone else. Yet he was all-too-aware that the due that was owed to the two crannogmen, especially Meera, was now past the point of no return.

She probably knew that too, though she was far too kind to say anything. Too kind, and too good of a friend. Far better than the Broken Wolf deserved.

As the thought passed through his head, her own rested on his shoulder and her hand movements slowed. He assumed that she had gotten tired until she whispered, “Now might be a good time to trade skins with Summer.”

Far smarter than he deserved as well. Bran nodded, his chin bumping against the top of her head as he did so. 

“I’ll wake you if you’re gone too long.”

 _Too long._ A bitter laugh swelled within Bran’s chest. There could be no such thing as too long in a different body when his was inherently defective. Only in Summer’s skin was he ever really himself, yet truly free of that very thing. Truly free of what made him a burden to everyone around him.

He rolled his eyes back into his head and slipped away.

_Two useless legs transformed into four good ones. His senses sharpened, his ears pricked. The enormous weight on his back rolled off, as easy as raindrops sliding down his pelt and dripping to the forest floor._

_He stretched his legs leisurely. All around him, the world seemed to vibrate to life with scents both familiar and unknown. A fox had run by about a quarter hour before. A single rabbit, bleeding from one leg, was holed up about a mile away. Easy prey, but she had so little meat on her bones that she wasn’t worth the chase. A small group of men and women, wrapped in furs and doubtlessly armed to the teeth, had been here yesterday. An eagle._

_Jojen had always reminded him to mark the trees. He’d said it was important, but Bran couldn’t remember why. His friend couldn’t understand this anyhow. He didn’t know what it was like to finally be free to roam after years of waiting to be carried or dragged to everyone else’s destinations._

_His attention was yanked away_ _first by a squirrel that dared to scuttle within inches of his snout. His muzzle snatched forward in a series of cracks; first, the snap of his jaw, then multiple following as the bones crunched between his teeth. He gulped each mouthful of bloody meat faster than the last. It was the first thing offering any real sustenance that he had eaten in days, and he savoured it._

_That is, until a different tang of blood burned through his nose. The blood of much larger game, fresh and begging for more to be spilt. Suddenly, his small meal was no longer appetizing._

_He chased the trail, instinct and hunger uniting as one into a single desire. A wanderer he was, yes, but he was still the greatest predator in this world. Nothing could stand in his way. Man or beast, no one would challenge him._

_In charge of his own world, unable to be defied, he was secure. At peace. Safe._

_Ahead, he could see it. A huge elk lay on the ground, recently brought down. He could still sense the warmth of her body. Her killer was close, he knew, but he was unafraid. He slowed to a lope as he reached her and bent his head to eat._

“Bran?”

_He snarled and whipped his head to face whoever had dared interrupt his meal. His nostrils flared as he drew in the scent._

_Grass and warm water. Bronze and iron. Clay. Familiar. He stopped growling and looked up into the green eyes of the speaker._

_The same green eyes that Meera had._

_His hackles laid flat, and a soft whine escaped his throat._

_Bran Stark been found once more._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, so... um... it's been a while.
> 
> I have a lot of excuses, but none of them really matter, so I'm straight up just gonna say that I'm sorry and I'm very grateful to those of you that are still following this story. 
> 
> I will tell you one of the excuses as it particularly pertains to this chapter: I don't know if I've EVER struggled to write a chapter as much as I struggled to write this one. I'd planned the Rast and Locke team-up from the beginning, but struggled to write their conversation agreeing to. I actually just had the idea to have Ghost show up mid-conversation two weeks ago, which really helped. From that point on, the rest of this chapter is pretty fresh. 
> 
> Probably the best thing about this chapter though is that I *finally* could have Bran and Meera know Locke's name. Thank God. 
> 
> I can't promise an update schedule at this point, but I will tell you that I feel like I'm over the hump. Thanks to the reviewer Dan for checking in-- it really, really inspired me to push this one out and just buckle down and do it. :)
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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